In gold script on the outside are the words: “A roots and blues club”. And that’s how the Wrotham feels: a club.
Gloriously, it is anything but. It’s an open-armed place, one that welcomes anyone and everyone, so long as they’ll buy a drink. Lemonade is permitted; tomato juice raises a wry eyebrow. The Wrotham does, however, love its rhythm and blues; it loves music of all kinds, from wailing harmonicas to screaming guitars and sea shanties, to men in denim doing their best Leonard Cohen. You might hear Mark Knopfler’s Local Hero being given a workout. Apt.
It is a pub as you know it: stools and tables and chairs and middling wine. But it is also its people, who join with their talent and welcome and friends, and those behind the bar, with their forgiving eyes and ready card readers. It is a pub you seldom meet but always want to. A beauty, in its own way. Aren’t we all? The Wrotham thinks so.
Ramsgate Road, Broadstairs, CT10 1QQ, wrothamarms.co.uk
