While researching The Rough Pub Guide: A Celebration Of The Great British Boozer (published by Orion), Paul Moody and Robin Turner travelled the British Isles in search of the perfect pub (for further details: roughpubguide.co.uk). Here, in no particular order, are 10 of the best.
1. The Pilchard Inn, Devon
The Pilchard Inn stands on Burgh Island, a grassy outcrop that gets cuts off from the south coast of Devon with the tides. Although best known for its hotel, it's the pub that drew us in. Eschewing the art deco glamour of the Burgh Island Hotel, which has enticed everyone from Agatha Christie to The Beatles over the years, the 14th-century Pilchard Inn looks like the kind of place where smugglers would hang out to enjoy a swift libation. A roaring log fire, foaming nut-brown ale, tales of resident ghosts and a briny moat between you and civilisation? Certainly beats your local Harvester.
• Burgh Island, Bigbury-On-Sea, Devon, TQ7 4BG
2. The Sair Inn, Yorkshire
Situated at the top of a steep hill along the A62 to Oldham, The Sair Inn isn't much to look at. Gain entry, however, and you'll find open fires in every room, rough flagstone floors and a chintz-free ambience courtesy of legendary landlord Ron Crabtree. A worthy winner of CAMRA's Pub Of The year in 1997, The Sair Inn continues to attract beer connoisseurs with its own-brewed ales including Autumn Gold and the deadly Leadboiler. But a visit here is about more than hops and barley. In this boozy Bermuda triangle hours vanish like sea-tossed yachts on radar, and a sense of well-being grows with every trip to the bar.
• 139 Lane Top, Linthwaite, Yorkshire, HD7 5SG
3. The Marisco Tavern, Devon
Accessible only by paddle steamer in the summer, and by helicopter in winter, Lundy is paradise for bird watchers and anyone who ever fantasises about being stranded on an island with nothing on it but a gift shop and a pub for refuge. The Marisco Tavern is a welcome sight indeed after the gruelling 20-minute hike up the rock face to the plateau point of the island. Once inside, kick back, relax and enjoy the recuperative effect of the beers (two of which are brewed especially for the pub by St Austell Brewery in Cornwall). Because, let's face it, it's all downhill from here.
• Lundy, Devon, EX39 2LY
4. The Red Lion, Wiltshire
The only pub in the world to stand within a stone circle, The Red Lion - a coaching inn dating to 1800 - is a heart-warming sight at any time of the year. Arrive during the solstice, however, and you'll find the place packed with pagan free thinkers including Arthur Uther Pendragon, aka '"The Real King Of England", and the air thick with talk of the "Devil's Chair", "Z" stones and the mysterious "Elastic Avebury" effect, which ensures that your first visit is rarely your last.
• High Street, Avebury, Wiltshire, SN8 1RF
5. The Foundry, London
The most anti-establishment pub in London, on a good night The Foundry feels genuinely revolutionary. Pictures of Tony Benn and Irvine Welsh lecturing in the bar add a healthy dose of underground gravitas while an artwork by Bill Drummond sits in the middle of the floor declaring, with suitable aplomb, "I Could Fuckin Do Better Than That". It's the perfect call to arms for all the have-a-go heroes who drink here, talking art, music or conspiratorial politics. Vive la revolution, East London style.
• 84-86 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3JL
6. The Vulcan, Cardiff
You give 155 years of service as a public house and what thanks do you get? In the case of The Vulcan, the threat of extinction thanks to the local town planners' insatiable desire for new shopping complexes and overspill car parks (the campaign to save it has now gone all the way to the Welsh Assembly). A classic Brains boozer, the Vulcan is a much-loved Cardiff institution with sawdust on the floor, The Rockford Files theme on the jukebox and outdoor toilets. If this pub is forced to close its doors, it'll be a tragic day in the Welsh capital.
• 10 Adam Street, Cardiff, CF24 2FH
7. The Temple, Manchester
"There's a hole in my neighbourhood/ Down which of late I cannot help but fall" goes Elbow's paean to the wonders of school night drinking, Grounds For Divorce. If the neighbourhood is Deansgate, then that would make the hole The Temple. Formerly one of the city centre's most notorious cottaging hot-spots (it's a converted Victorian toilet in the middle of Great Bridgewater Street), The Temple is now a bar with just enough room for a spot of impromptu cat swinging. The loos are decorated with 1950s erotica, there's a no-nonsense jukebox and bottled beers from the four corners of the world. Unpretentious and intimate, with great music and forgiving lighting. What more could you ask for?
• Great Bridgewater Street, Manchester, M1 5JW
8. The Heart & Hand, Brighton
A magnet for writers, musicians and loafers in general, the H&H also serves as a handy field hospital for shell-shocked shoppers after an afternoon spent browsing the Lanes. If the exterior is quietly impressive - an all over face of emerald green tiles, unchanged for a hundred years - the jewel in the crown is the vinyl only jukebox, untouched for 15 years, which relentlessly mines the golden age of pop (Elvis, The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks). Order a pint of Harveys and luxuriate in every crackle.
• 75 North Road, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 1YD
9. The Yew Tree, Stoke-On-Trent
There are no carpets at The Yew Tree, no bar meals and a distinct lack of alcopops. It's a peculiar blend of twinkling bonhomie and faint, vestigial menace - you'd imagine Heath Robinson could fashion up a time machine out of ephemera including a boneshaker bicycle, a Jacobean four-poster bed and one of Queen Victoria's stockings. Curator of this strange museum is Alan Yates, pub landlord for the last 46 years. The till is pre-decimal, the ancient beer pumps will warm the heart of anyone who remembers Double Diamond, and Roy Wood of Wizzard is a regular. At The Yew Tree it really does feel like it's Christmas every day.
• Cauldon Waterhouses, Stoke-On-Trent, Staffordshire, ST10 3EJ
10. The Halfway House, Edinburgh
A boozy hobbit-hole crouched near the entrance to Edinburgh Station, the Halfway House has a strong claim to being the nation's most handily placed pub. Arrive here a quarter of an hour before your train leaves and you'll have time to throw back a couple of pints, moan about the weather and tour the premises before the guard parps his whistle. Originally a bolt-hole for blood-stained workers from the nearby slaughterhouse, business soared when an umbrella factory opened next door. These days, tourists are lured in by a menu including haggis, neeps and tatties, but delve into the cupboards and you'll hear the rattle of bones. Victorian rogue - and inspiration for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Deacon Brodie drank here, while Ian Rankin's De Rebus uncovered skeletons in a pub on this spot in the book Fleshmarket Close.
• 24 Fleshmarket Close, Edinburgh, Scotland
