The Mount Vineyard is not far from Seveonaks, near Shoreham in Kent (not to be confused with any other Shoreham in south-east England). Shoreham is one of those villages which is defying the general trend of closing pubs by having at least 3, all of which seem to be doing just fine.
I headed to the Mount on a Saturday, which involved a lot of town riding (partly because the M25 is boring, and partly because the M25 was partly closed). I’m not a big fan of town riding, but as I’d been overly optimistic and put on my summer jacket, the lack of a 70 mph headwind wasn’t the worst thing. Traffic was pretty bad, though, as there seemed to be a plethora of roadworks between the A3 and the A21.
The A21 is a pretty fun road, though, and the A224 has some nice moments as well. Then I was onto an unclassified single lane road winding up and down hills between some very leafy hedges, which have clearly been making the most of the late summer sun. The surface, however, was surprisingly good for the road type - I’m used to roads like this having potholes and muddy patches and general damage from farm vehicles for which they were not designed.
For field, read: dodge the ruts and mud-slicks and people walking their dogs.
The setting is beautiful, the shop is well-stocked and very friendly and the coffee shop was shut. The restaurant, however, was open and served very good coffee. The menu isn’t the most varied, being largely pizza and salad, but I have no problems with a limited menu if a place does it as well as The Mount did.
