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It’s that time of year when everybody starts scrambling to find the perfect beer garden with good drinks on tap, hearty pub grub and gorgeous views as a bonus. 

To get you there quicker, here we reveal England’s top 25 best beer gardens, as ranked by travel website Big 7 Travel.

To make the list pubs had to impress with their ambience, scenery and food and drink selection, with the final selection generated by analysing customer and critic reviews as well as editorial opinions, online presence, consistency, service, value for money, presentation, location and accessibility. 

10. THE FERRY INN – SALCOMBE, DEVON 

Built in 1739, The Ferry Inn is the oldest and most famous pub in Salcombe, says Big 7 Travel. 

It notes: ‘The historic pub boasts a pretty stone terrace that is so close to the waterfront you can practically touch the waves. There are at least a dozen or so large picnic tables outside with umbrellas for sunny days and fairy lights for when the sun goes down.’ 

Offering views of Salcombe’s estuary, beaches and undulating countryside, it is a ‘prime spot’ for people-watching too, Big 7 Travel reveals. 

9. THE CANAL HOUSE – BIRMINGHAM, WEST MIDLANDS

Of this pub-restaurant, which claimed the title of Best Pub in the Midlands at The National Pub & Bar Awards, Big 7 Travel says: ‘While it’s easy to see why customers rave about its hearty Sunday Roasts and live music, it’s the beer garden we’re interested in. 

‘Boasting brilliant views of the canal basin, with plenty of seating on the outdoor terrace, it’s the perfect place to soak in the sunshine with a drink.’

The website adds that ‘with over 60 beers in the ale inventory, an extensive cocktail menu and a wide range of soft drinks on offer, you won’t be stuck for choice either’.

8. THE SHIP INN – MUNDESLEY, NORFOLK

Overlooking the ‘golden sands’ of Mundesley Beach, The Ship Inn is described as ‘an idyllic seaside escape’. 

Big 7 Travel says: ‘The 300-year-old pub is beloved by locals and visitors for its tasty and unpretentious food and an excellent range of local beers.

‘The large beer garden is located at the back of the red-brick pub and offers dazzling views of the North Sea.’ 

7. THE WHEATSHEAF – COMBE HAY, BATH, SOMERSET 

‘Bath has its fair share of historic pubs, but not all of them boast views like those at The Wheatsheaf.’ 

So says Big 7 Travel of this pub, a ‘whitewashed farmhouse-turned pub’ that lies an ‘easy 15-minute drive from Bath’s city centre’. 

Pictures show the sprawling terraced gardens overlooking the ‘bucolic’ countryside and ‘some of the region’s prettiest villages’. Big 7 Travel notes: ‘The drinks list is excellent but the food is even better. Keep an eye on the calendar as there’s always something going on, from steak nights to summer parties.’ 

Reviewer ‘Jason M’ on Tripadvisor describes it as a ‘country pub of the highest quality’ and a ‘beautiful pub in a glorious location’. 

6. THE GARDENERS REST, SHEFFIELD, SOUTH YORKSHIRE

The Gardeners Rest is described as ‘a proper pub with a difference’, as it is Sheffield’s first community-owned pub. 

Punters can enjoy a drink overlooking the River Don in its beer garden, which is ‘one of the quirkiest in the country’, according to Big 7 Travel. 

Features include a flower-filled labyrinth of picnic tables, sculptures, vegetables, quirky sculptures and fireplaces, Big 7 Travel reveals. Writing on Tripadvisor, ‘Dawn G’ said: ‘A very interesting beer garden awaits you at the back of this pub. It is full of curiosities and a lovely flower garden with tomatoes growing along with quirky sculptures and fireplaces embedded into the fabric of the walls.’ 

5. THE DRUNKEN DUCK INN – AMBLESIDE, CUMBRIA

This Lake District gem is ‘set in a huge 400-year-old building in 60 private acres of rambling countryside’, offering ‘glorious fell views that stretch out for miles’, Big 7 Travel reveals. 

It says: ‘It’s a popular spot with walkers who hotfoot here after tackling the local peaks for brilliant beers brewed from the award-winning on-site microbrewery and a delicious daily changing menu. If you can’t face the walk home, there are 13 individually designed bedrooms to settle down into too.’ 

Writing on Tripadvisor, reviewer ‘CLP3210’ said that the pub lies ‘in a beautiful location’ and serves ‘excellent’ food. 

4. THE JOLLY FISHERMAN – CRASTER, NORTHUMBERLAND  

‘This award-winning pub pairs stunning sea views with fantastic food and good company,’ says Big 7 Travel.

When the weather gets hot, it recommends bagging one of the tables outside, ‘where the views extend past Dunstanburgh Castle and out to sea’. 

The website reveals: ‘There’s a good range of drinks to choose from but we recommend arriving hungry. What could be better than kipper scotch eggs, Shetland mussels and famous Craster crabs served with a sparkling sea view?’ 

3. THE PEOPLE’S PARK TAVERN – LONDON

Praising this watering hole, Big 7 Travel says: ‘The chaotic capital isn’t short on excellent beer gardens, but the People’s Park Tavern comes up trumps.’

It continues: ‘Overlooking East London’s beloved Victoria Park, the beer garden is one of the largest in London, with an indoor-outdoor greenhouse, seasonal barbecue kitchen, pop-up cocktail bar and tap wall.’ 

What’s more, the website notes that the pub boasts its own on-site microbrewery and has more than 70 beers on tap. 

2. THE RISING SUN – PENSFORD, SOMERSET

‘The Rising Sun is a mere 15 minutes away from Bristol’s city centre, but it feels worlds away thanks to its idyllic countryside location,’ Big 7 Travel declares. 

It continues: ‘Nestled at the foot of Pensford Viaduct by the River Chew, the large beer garden boasts stunning views and a lovely, laid-back atmosphere.’ 

Big 7 Travel notes that the Cornish brewery St Austell owns the pub, so there’s an ‘excellent’ selection of beers on tap. Plus, it describes the food menu as ‘fantastic and very reasonably priced’. 

1. THE WATERING HOLE – PERRANPORTH, CORNWALL

Describing The Watering Hole, the number-one-ranked pub, Big 7 Travel says: ‘The bar, restaurant and live music venue sit smack-bang in the middle of Perranporth’s golden sands, making it the UK’s only bar on the beach.’ 

The website continues: ‘Open all year round, it serves real ales from local breweries, cocktails and a wide variety of soft and hot drinks, including a dreamy hot chocolate. There’s a good range of beach-friendly grub on offer too.’ 

Not only that, but the venue ‘has become famous for its various live music events featuring lineups’, Big 7 Travel reveals, with Sam Ryder expected to perform this summer. 

A respected British scientist duped Kew Gardens into displaying a fake ‘fungus’ more than half a century ago, and the ‘species’ still remains in the collection today. 

Richard Dennis, the former head of mycology at Kew in London, described a sample of unusual spheres as a new fungus species in a research paper in 1962. 

However, Professor Dennis knew the three wrinkled objects – which were sent to Kew by members of the public in England and Africa – were anything but. 

Pictured below is the original specimen sent from Lancashire in 1953 that looks much like a truffle – but can you guess what it really is?

Professor Dennis, who died in 2003 and was known for his sharp sense of humour, hoodwinked his entire scientific community by keeping the true identity quiet, although he did drop major hints in his research paper. 

If you’re still struggling to work out what it is from the photo, here’s a big clue. 

Professor Dennis gave his ‘species’ the following name – Golfballia ambusta, which translates from Latin to mean ‘scorched golf ball’!

Professor Dennis knew that these were golf balls, but instead of letting his colleagues know, he accessioned them as a new species and authored a tongue-in-cheek research paper about it. 

The paper, published in 1962 in the Journal of the Kew Guild, was titled ‘A Remarkable New Genus of Phalloids in Lancashire and East Africa’. 

Alluding to the true nature of the objects, he said: ‘The unopened fruit body evidently closely resembles certain small, hard but elastic, spheres employed by the Caledonians in certain tribal rites, practiced at all seasons of the year in enclosures of partially mown grass set apart for the purpose. 

‘As with other phalloids, there is a strong scent and distinctive odour, in this instance not unpleasant and identified independently by several observers as reminiscent of old or heated India-rubber. 

‘Taste not recorded but probably mild; the fruit bodies are unlikely to be toxic but may well prove inedible from their texture.’ 

It’s thought that the balls were lost by golfers before being unknowingly burnt in bonfires and rediscovered later by members of the public. 

Another nine years after the paper was published, in 1971, a third burnt golf ball that was found in Kent arrived in Kew’s post. 

Despite clearly stating that it was found ‘at edge of a fire site’ in woods between Farnborough and Downe, it was still added to the collection. 

The three Golfballia ambusta specimens are still in Kew’s Fungarium today, although sadly the collection is not open to the public. 

Academics are in disagreement about whether the specimens should be kept there, although because the ‘species’ has been accessioned to the collection, ‘it will remain there forever’, a Kew spokesperson told MailOnline. 

Nathan Smith, former Fungarium operations manager at Kew, said he would be temped to take the specimens out the Fungarium and put them somewhere on display somewhere else. 

Smith said Golfballia ambusta ‘stops being being funny and just becomes confusing’ when kept among a large collection of genuine specimens. 

However, Fungarium collection manager Lee Davies said Golfballia occupies a miniscule amount of space in the Fungarium and so might as well be kept. 

‘It was originally sent in as a serious identification enquiry, so has a degree of validity for keeping it in,’ he said. 

Ukrainian engineers have designed a DIY rocket that families can build in their own back gardens from everyday materials to rain terror on the Russian invaders.

Dubbed the ‘people’s missile’, the Trembita uses the same technology as the German V1 flying bombs, or Doodlebugs, used in the Second World War.

The anti-Russian Vidsich protest group designed the ‘garage-made’ rocket which, while not as accurate as laser-guided missiles, should be able to travel around 87 miles.

A barrage of 20 of the missiles could ‘overcome enemy air defences and hit targets at a sufficient depth’, the group has claimed. 

The rockets can carry up to 20kg of explosives or a thermobaric charge, and use a painfully loud 100-decibel engine. This, creators say, would strike fear into Russian soldiers in the same way that the distinctive whine of Hitler’s Doodlebugs terrified Londoners during WW2.

The genius of the improvised weapon also lies in its ability to deplete expensive Russian weapons, its developers say.

By releasing a thermal signal picked up by enemy air-defence systems, the Russians would then fire expensive munitions to down the cheaply made rockets.

‘Our simple missile is incomparably cheaper than the shots of enemy anti-aircraft missile systems,’ Vidsich told The Telegraph.

The new weapons have been likened to V1 rockets, used by the Nazis on London towards the end of the Second World War.

Some 5,000 V1s, the world’s first cruise missile, were launched by the Germans to bomb London, causing a massive loss of life.

The Trembita uses the same technology as the V1. It is effectively a motor-powered steel tube which is then attached to glider wings and fired from a catapult. 

Social media videos showing what appear to be prototypes of the new Trembita weapons seem to show its creators firing up a jet engine.

By using gasoline as fuel, the rockets can fly up to 87 miles, giving them almost twice the range of the US-made M31 GMLRS missiles fired by America’s M142 Himars launchers, which have proved one of Kyiv’s most crucial armaments in the war. 

Weighing in at 100kg, these new missiles are expected to be able to reach speeds of 248mph.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former Nato commander, said of the new weaponry, was optimistic about the role of the missiles. 

‘Improvised weapons can be very effective and the Ukrainians are very canny and the Russians pretty inept,’ he said, saying the new rockets can help Ukraine to save on more expensive Western weapons.

Ukrainians are no strangers to developing improvised weapons, from Molotov cocktails made by civilians when Vladimir Putin’s forces first invaded to kamikaze drones. Drone racing groups such as the formidable Angry Birds team have been praised for their clever use of racing drones as weapons, turning the small devices into bombs that could be sent straight into enemy strongholds.

Russia has also used drones in brutal attacks on Ukrainian positions and cities, with Iran reported to have sent 1,700 military drones to Putin’s forces. 

Moscow has launched hundreds of Iranian drones, including the Shahed-136 suicide drones, and others that can conduct both strikes and reconnaissance. 

But in a spectacular attack in the early hours of today, suspected to have been carried out by Ukrainian drone teams, an oil storage depot in Russia exploded in a towering inferno.

The strike – the latest in a series of apparent strikes by Ukraine on Russian territory – was only six miles from the Kerch Bridge built by Putin to link the Krasnodar region in Russia with Crimea, which he annexed in 2014.

As the war drags on, Ukrainians continue to employ ingenious tactics to repel the Russian invaders. 

Saboteurs yesterday derailed a Russian freight train and destroyed power cables with explosive devices in a double blow for Putin.

The train, carrying oil and construction materials, burst into flames following a detonation on the tracks in the Bryansk region, 37 miles from the Ukrainian border.

Video taken shortly after the attack showed several destroyed carriages ablaze and lying on their sides, with dark smoke billowing into the air.

Local governor Alexander Bogomaz said the explosive device went off ‘on the 136th kilometre’ of the railroad between Bryansk and the town of Unecha – a route used for transporting Moscow’s military supplies.

The sabotage attacks came as Kyiv prepares for a widely expected counter-offensive this spring, with Ukraine building up its mechanised brigades with armour supplied by its Western allies. 

Russian Railways, the country’s rail operator, said the attack on the freight train occurred at 10.17am Moscow time (07.17 GMT). 

It said the locomotive and seven freight wagons were derailed and the locomotive caught fire. 

Meanwhile, the White House said on Monday that Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties, with more than 20,000 killed in action, during just the past five months amid the grinding conflict in Ukraine.

It reflects how Moscow’s hopes of rapid victory have given way to a brutal war of attrition that carries a huge cost.

Coupled with previous estimates by US officials it could put the total number of Russian casualties at 200,000 since Moscow invaded last year. 

John Kirby, White House security spokesman, said Russia’s attempt at an offensive in the eastern Donbas region, through the city of Bakhmut, had largely failed.

‘For Russia this attempted effort, particularly in Bakhmut, has come at a terribly, terribly high cost,’ he told reporters.

‘Russia has exhausted its military stockpiles and its armed forces and since December alone… we estimate Russia has suffered more than 100,000 casualties, including over 20,000 Killed in action, nearly half of whom were Wagner soldiers, the majority of whom were Russian convicts that were thrown into combat… [without] sufficient combat training, combat leadership, or any sense of organisational command and control.’

He said the information was based on newly declassified intelligence, but did not offer further details.