Pint to pint: The Bell, Surrey The pub itself has a brick in its foundations which says the structure was built in 1635. Alongside stands a gigantic brass bell of roughly the same vintage, preserved inside a glass cabinet the size of a small greenhouse. The inn's interior maintains this theme of an England now long gone, with a combination of long, low ceilings and primitive wood panelling. Walking from bar to bar is like passing from one handsomely carved medieval railway carriage to another. Tables are long and ancient, some discreetly separated from others by wooden screens, for greater ease of Jacobean-style plotting. In keeping with the pub's stupendously cosy wood stove, the food is of the filling and warming kind: toasty hot bread rolls with paté and home-made chutney for £7.95, lasagne, chilli and chicken curry (all £9.95), plus apple and cinnamon crumble with custard for £4.95. This being a Fuller's pub, the presiding ales are London Pride (4.1% abv) and lovely, strong, ESB (5.5%), along with the light and tasty Seafarers bitter (3.6%), originally brewed by George Gale, of Horndean in Hampshire (now part of Fuller's). Step outside, as the weak afternoon sun gives way to evening shadows, and it seems as if the pub is bathed in the same, sepia glow as in the photographs hanging on the wall, taken more than half a century ago. Yes, of course, it's 2012, but for a couple of hours, you've been out for a few beers not just to the countryside, but to 1955. The Bell, Outwood Lane, Outwood, Surrey (01342 842989; belloutwood.co.uk)