The Station House

You step off the platform and straight into a bar that actually feels like a pub should—all original features and the kind of place where regulars know the staff's names. The Station House sits exactly where its name promises, in that handsome Victorian building on North Road that's been pulling in drinkers since the railway came through. The crowd's mixed: commuters killing time before trains, students from the Palatinate offices just up the road, and locals who've been coming here for years. The ales rotate properly, there's proper food that doesn't try too hard, and you can actually hear yourself think without dance music hammering away.