"It was really exciting actually, I wasn't expecting it" - The Ship Inn reacts to being named Hampshire's best pub at The National Pub & Bar Awards 2025

The pub with picturesque sea views won the regional award at The National Pub & Bar Awards at a ceremony in London last week. The honour came after the pub demonstrated how it supported the community, developed it’s staff, and provided great service when a member of the awards team turned up unannounced as a mystery shopper.

Having gone through the lengthy application progress, to be named as the winner was an exciting moment for the pub’s manager Mark Dawson.

He said: “We are really excited to have won. We got an email through saying we'd made it through to the finalists, which was amazing. Then on the night it popped up with Hampshire and there was our name as the winner. It was really exciting actually, I wasn't expecting it.”

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While the award is recognition for Mark his staff’s hard work, he believes there is a number of reasons why the pub is so popular for locals and visitors from further afield.

He said: “We are in a great location, which is half the battle. We also put on huge amounts of events, like massive fireworks, raft race events, we still do weekly quiz and poker nights, and we also concentrate on making sure our food is on point.

“The team are just so engaged, we have a really strong team that drives our reputation. That’s the biggest thing of all, you can have a great location, but without reputation you're losing.”

The Ship Inn has also benefitted from making itself a place where people from all walks of life feel welcome, helped by putting on a diverse selection of events throughout the year.

Mark said: “We do have a strong core group of locals but the Ship itself brings so many people in. We'll have business people in who are staying at the hotels nearby, people coming down from the seaside, or who are just visiting for the day. Then there are groups who come in for our quiz night and people that come in just for a drink on a Friday night.

“If you name it, we have a demographic that comes in, and we've really found the balance to keep everybody happy.”

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The key for the success of many pubs these days, is the quality of its food. Once again, Mark believes they have found the right balance between casual dining and and a more refined experience. The pub offers a selection of pub classics while also reflecting its location with a great seafood offering.

He said: “We try and have a balanced menu. We do classic pub food, we have scampi, fish and chips, pies but we also do try and elevate our dining experience as well. Our restaurant will serve a lot of fresh fish, we have done seabream schnitzels and a couple of weeks ago we had the big tomahawk steaks.

“Catering for casual diners we also have nachos and camembert, we do a bit of everything to keep everyone happy.”

The Ship Inn’s next big event is their annual charity raft race which is taking place on Saturday, July 26. Further detail son the event can be found at https://www.shiplangstone.co.uk/whats-on/the-ship-inn-raft-race-2025

Watch the video embedded in this article for the full interview with Mark.