The Castle Tavern (Morland)
Castle Street

Morland Smooth £2.00
Guinness £2.30
Strongbow Cider £2.00 (6.xii.1997)

Colin Batchelor writes:
Since this review was written, a rainbow-coloured flag has gone up 
outside, suggesting that the topless pool at the very least is no more. 
(2003-09-25)


This is awful. There's NO BITTER ON TAP. They have two sorts of lager, one sort of cider, one sort of stout, and the only Morland product on offer is Original Smooth. It doesn't stop there - what could have been a reasonable pub (lots of dark wainscoting, rafters bearing embarrassed-looking pub brasses) is spoilt by the poor lighting, loud music from the jukebox, and lots of neon all about the place advertising lagers and similar. It's got a good vantage point, overlooking Castle St, Paradise St, and the Westgate centre, but you have to go up a ramp from Paradise St to get to it, and the Gents is concealed somewhere in the basement. It could be a reasonable pub if it actually served some more different sorts of beer, were lit better, had the jukebox turned down a few notches, and generally stopped catering to pre-club traffic. Not actually a place I'd go to out of choice, considering that it's within spitting difference of the better O.X. One. (6.xii.1997) The Oxford Mail has reported that on Friday nights, it offers "Topless Pool" whereby you pay money to play pool against a topless woman (who gets paid £100 for an evening's work). They appear to be having difficulty in recruiting women for this. (3.vi.1998)