White Horse Inn in Purbeck

Brilliant friendly clean place to stay. Thank you.

We stayed with relatives for 2 nights in two different rooms. Staff were very helpful but obviously overworked & trained in standard response by the owners if anyone complains. As a paying guest I must say the Rooms are very poor & the management/owners need to up their game & should spend some money to upgrade the rooms if they are planning to continue offering B&B at the prices they charge. No hot water on 1st day, it did get sorted but was then scalding hot. Water pressure all over the place when having a shower, scalding hot to freezing cold when other rooms using water. Toilet seat loose & broken. a towel rail / hook or anything to hang things in the bathroom would be useful rather than put your clean towels & clothes on the floor or broken toilet seat. No hot water in the second room on day 2. Also toilet in this room took about 15 minutes to fill. Decor in both rooms very “tired”. Only 1 pillow per person, rooms smelt of smoke. Generally rooms not very clean, no supplied milk with the tea & coffee, didn’t bother to go ask for any, as a paying guest shouldn’t have to ask! The pub advertised B&B with parking. This is NOT true & we spent an unexpected £10 a day per car to park in a public car park. The owners need to update the facts advertised on this as it is misleading details. All in all I would not recommend anyone to stay here unless you want to be very disappointed. I would suggest £40 per room per night is the current value of the rooms in their current condition. The place obviously focuses on being a sports bar, that’s fine as a business model & is ok down in the bar but it doesn’t do B&B very well.

Great food, very reasonable prices,staff and service excellent, will visit again soon. Well done all.

I have to agree with one other review, do not go here if you are Gluten free you are treated like a second class citizen. We ordered our meals and my partner ordered chilli con carne as it was first said it was GF. We paid did not receive a receipt and waited for our food. One female waitress was in my opinion very rude and never smiled and was more interested in getting ready for a band than seeing to customers. My meal arrived after a very long wait and looked nothing like the photo, and we continued to wait for my partners meal which never came and in the end was told they didn't prepare it as they thought she did not want it as even that may contain Gluten, all I got was its not our fault she is GF. We certainly will never go there again or recommend it to anyone.

We went there early to to make sure we got a seat and table for a band playing at the Blues Festival as our friend has fractured his neck and is currently in a neck brace and walks with a stick. Incredibly before the band started we were asked to vacate the table to make more space for dancing and despite explaining the situation we were not offered a seat for our friend. We finished our drinks and left. We will not be back.

They need the aircon and/or ceiling fans to be turned on when it's as packed as during Blues Festival weekend. 🥵

Lovely local pub. Comfortable, tv with sports.

Great breakfast and service and good beer selection 👌

Absolutely fantastic place. Drove 2 hours down to Swanage and this was the first place we went into. The atmosphere was relaxed. Tidy and clean. I ordered the Hunter Chicken meal and it was absolutely beautiful. I loved the meal. The drinks were fab. The lovely lady that greeted us and served us was lovely. Toilets available and clean and tidy. We will definitely go back.

Just visiting the area for the day stopped off for a hot drink friendly staff lovely pub would defo return maybe for food also if we was in the area saw a few meals come out looked good !

Had a lovely gammon steak and a cup of tea. Staff welcomed us , even though the kitchen was closing. Toilets need work.

Great pub in the heart of Swanage. Very reasonable food and drink prices. Great pub food and staff very friendly and efficient. And if you like sport plenty of tv screens showing sport.

Good beers. Good food. TV too loud, Music too loud.

Update summer 2024: Still a very nice pub with dedicated staff and attractive food and a good selection of drinks at attractive prices - we'll be happy to come back! Every time is a good time-fine pub for a beer and meal. Returning for years during our holidays. Sometimes busy (especially on Sundays), unfortunately no beer garden - only 2 tables in front on the pavement.

We went for a family lunch and we are very disappointed with food and service. It wasn’t that busy so we found a nice table at the back of the pub the menu was limited however felt it was ideal for a lunch. We placed our order we weren’t advised for any food order delays. Our food arrived after a 40 minute wait. The tomato and mozzarella baguette was bland with thickly sliced tomatoes and limited amount of cheese that barely covered the tomatoes. We ordered two beef onion and cheese baguettes they were unsatisfactory and had to be sent back with a refund given.

Popped in for a pint and food they don't serve food till 5.30pm food was lovely and big portions had pie and the staff very helpful this bar is very much a local bar which I love see you again in the future

Just left there today with my 2 dogs. Lovely place and very friendly and warming . Will definitely be back for the superb location and breakfast !! Sue Seeney

Friendly staff Food tasty I recommend coming here

We had such an amazing meal here tonight The steak and ale pie was so tasty, full of meat and would recommend 😋 £10.95 The burger buns are gluten free which was great.

Great food best one in Swanage price wise and variety on menu. Steak and Ale Pie amazing home cooked too. Other meals where fab also

Best pub in Swanage. Great staff, great food, great atmosphere. Highly recommend!!🩷

The food isn't that great and they cut off the desert and didn't tell us before we ordered it.

Great atmosphere and lovely food and brilliant staff

Called in here for lunch on Saturday. Basic menu. Not overpriced. Good choice of real ales and ciders, again not overpriced. Food took a while to come out and it was mainly hot baguettes but it was tasty so no complaints. We sat out the back as it was empty, didn't feel like part of the pub but it suited us.

Stayed at this pub for 3 nights. The room was great & the bed was very comfortable. Don’t come if you are gluten intolerant. My friends forgot to say I was GF so they had no bread for my breakfast. I had my own loaf but was told it was “against the law” for them to toast it & they made a huge loud & embarrassing fuss. My husband asked them to get some GF bread in for day 2. Later they phoned us & asked us to buy some ourselves. Day 3 they tried to refuse it again.

Great little find spent 2 afternoons and an evening there friendly staff.

We pop in occasionally for a Saturday morning breakfast - it is a reasonable price and a delicious breakfast. It is consistently well cooked. Atmosphere is always friendly and happy.

Service could have been better not a very friendly atmosphere but a welcome stop on a hot afternoon.

Lovely to sit and have a cider a very clean pub..and cider was lovely.. cheers well recomended

Lively welcoming pub with good range of ales. Very reasonable beer prices ( best in town) and excellent choice of food. Cheery landlady and staff

Our go-to pub when in Swanage! We love the food and always feel welcome.

We stopped here for lunch and a pint. Proper pub food with some nice beers on tap. Very happy with the prices and the food was good too. I had the steak burger and the wife has the tuna steak. Both meals were great. Sky sports is also shown.

The rooms plus food were great,just the service in the breakfast room was very slow.

Been twice this week for meals good pub grub

Excellent staff who went the extra mile when serving us, would use this place again.

Popped in for breakfast, reasonable price and quality of food. Quick service as well.

Super pub, lovely rooms. Superb location and friendly staff. Cooked breakfast was delicious and we had a super weekend all-round !

Great food, friendly staff and lots of sports. What more could you need! Dog friendly which is always nice!

Decent friendly pub with sensible prices

An excellent place to dine in the evening, especially when the weather is wet. The food and service was excellent.

Friendly staff, good service. Delicious breakfast....Thank you.

No bells and whistles pub very pleasant atmosphere serving breakfast from 9 and daily meals, pool table and darts for your entertainment with a log fire for the colder evenings. Selection of beers wine and spirits bar snacks as usual sport on 4 tvs but turned down so conversations are not overpowered, overall a good place to go for a nice pint

Great pub.... good service, lovely fire and TV.....but most important......OLD ROSIE ON TAP....

Great atmosphere, good prices. Child and dog friendly. Open fire to warm yourself.....or dry a soggy dog. All staff are so friendly and make you feel welcome from the first time you enter.

Great local pub, incredibly friendly helpful staff!

Starving on a sunday morning stroll round Swanage.. dived in for breakfast and a coffee. Found it was great value. The staff and even the locals very welcoming. Would definitely visit again

Well priced food and drinks and good quality as well. Friendly staff and atmosphere all in the lovely seaside town of Swanage. After this recent visit, I have to say we are quite disappointed with the food we had. The service was still good but very uninspiring food. The lasagne had so much cheddar it was swimming in oil. The ham egg n chips was cold and the salad was limp.

Best pub in town! Fantastic staff and great food!

Nice food at very competitive prices

Lots of screens for the football and a few decent ales on. I visited during January and I think the kitchen were on shorter hours. The place gets busy but accommodated us during a busy afternoon.

Go to for football when in Swanage. Friendly service in a convenient position on (or very just behind) the front. Could do with some extra vegan options, but has a few good quality/value standards to lean on if the food is an accompaniment to another reason for visit. Good atmosphere for games, walking right line between energetic without rowdiness. Recommended.

Really good value food in a typical pub. Drinks well priced and a fun sports bar.

Beautiful food and lovely staff

Whilst it is a sports bar, it has a good choice of ales and excellent bar staff.

Friendly service. We waited quite a log time for our food but we weren't in a hurry. Food was quite good. Not a great choice of meals. Very inexpensive which was a bonus. Would go again.

This place was an absolute gem of a find to eat, the food was outstanding and reasonably priced. The locals were friendly too. Will defo be returning to eat here when we go back to swanage.

Excellent Breakfast this morning thanx 😊

Came for a meal just before half term so very quiet! Lovely! Food was great lobes the chicken, bacon creamy pasta. Would definitely come back again xx

Welcoming and reasonably priced pint, being a sports bar has great in toilet entertainment

This is the story of two eateries in Swanage and how divergent the experience can be. We visited this pub on a busy Thursday evening, by busy I mean that the football was in full swing on multiple screens showing multiple games. It was very busy with both locals and visitors. The decor and set up is very much of the traditional British pub. The drinks - based on other local pubs/restaurants in the area - are reasonably priced. The food was excellent value for money and well presented. Our bill for the evening came to an exact £50. And the second eatery? Well the previous evening we had spent £83 on two dinners and the same amount of alcohol in a “pub” less than 200 yards away on the same street. The food was not as good or as well presented and frankly the ambiance was a bit sterile. So before “weighing anchor” to eat in this charming town have a good look around.

Went in for lunch. Dogs welcome. Great service, good prices, good choice on menu, several beers and ciders on draught as well as delicious coffee's. Would definitely go again if we're in Swanage again.

Good service, good food reasonable price.

Went here a few times whilst on holiday for the week. As a pub, it's fine. Good selection of beers, friendly staff. There's loads of TVs all over the place so it's great for watching sports as you can sit or stand anywhere and you'll be able to see no problem. It does get very busy for games involving the big teams. Food is also good. Typical pub food, but nice. You can eat in the main pub, or, in the back there is a quieter, cooler area also. This makes better it better if you want more of the restaurant evening rather than a pub evening. Minor criticism is that when the smokers go outside to smoke, the pub should really make them move out of the entrance area, as the smoke is k8nd of trapped in and blows back into the pub. Not nice.

Horrible. Poor food, sticky tables, complacent. All that’s wrong with the English ‘seaside’.

Great welcome and good food, the best BLT baguette my wife said she hasever had, and she's had a lot

One of the worst meals ever. I asked if the steak and chips were gluten free and was told the chips were cooked with other things so were not so I had new potatoes. I was advised not to have the flat iron steak well done or it would be tough. I was happy to take advice to have it medium well. I asked if I could have salad instead of peas. The waitress, who was lovely and really helpful, went to check and said I could. When the meal arrived the steak was well done and dry, there were peas as well as a pathetic bit of salad, a few tasteless lettuce leaves, 2 cherry tomatoes, some onion and what I can only suppose were 2 croutons even though I had made it quite clear that I couldn't eat wheat! The mushrooms were served in a seperate dish in case I didn't want them as they were not GF. My husband ordered a salad as an extra and got the same as I did for a cost of £3!

Always great service. Very accommodating and kind friendly bar staff, well run pub. Friendly towards the elderly and to dogs.

After 3 hour early drive to swanage was in need of a breakfast, as the White House was the second eatery serving breakfast ( first looked bit greasy spoon) from the carpark decided to stop. First mistake! Staff short tempered abrupt and everything was to much trouble. Food was low quantity with a typical sawdust sausage and bearing in mind most is pre cooked it took 45 minutes to arrive. However more shocking was to see a waitress gather several Heinz tomato ketchup bottles and proceed to top them up with a cheap jumbo bottle! You have to wonder how old the ketchup at the bottom of the bottles is and if these bottles will be topped up all season!

Good pub, great staff , great sports bar. Had a cracking evening, met some lovely people, and Shannon the bar manager made us and our kelpie dog very welcome 👍😎,

Went to the White Horse Inn for breakfast after looking at other cafes in Swanage which were mostly overpriced. Good breakfast and reasonably priced. Good service and the log fire was very welcoming!

We visited Swanage for a few hours and fancied a bite to eat for lunch. Having read the menu we opted for the hot baguettes , but being midday it wasn't deemed late enough for the main menu and they only served breakfasts. I had a sausage and bacon sandwich and my partner had a bacon sandwich. The quality of the food was surprisingly good and the real ale was of a high standard. The pub itself is in need of a refurb , the bar has seen better days ! , but the staff were friendly and accommodating.

This place is great value for pub grub. The staff are always hard-working but always very pleasant and helpful definitely be eating here again.

Came in June as a group of friends. Was welcomed warmly and we felt very comfortable. Food and beer was great. Will come again when we are back over the bridge 😄

We’ve been in numerous times for drinks but decided to eat tonight as the food has always looked good and reasonably priced. We were not disappointed. I had the homemade lasagne that was so filling and packed full of meat, pasta and cheese - delicious. Dad had the homemade steak and ale pie that again was a big portion with big chunks of steak in it. More than worth the price. The burgers and hunters chicken that offers had in the family also all went down a treat. We will definitely eat here again. Don’t be put off because the place shows live sports, it’s fab!

10 of us were in town for a friend's birthday. This pub welcomed us and a dog like honoured guests and moved tables to seat us together. ( another local pub had refused the dog entry) The food was tasty and the staff were really helpful coming to the table to take drinks and food bill. They also helped us split the bill at the end. We will be back. Thank you.

Really enjoyed an afternoon session in the White Horse. Good real ale and really friendly staff. Will definitely be back next time in swanage Cheers

Top draw. Friendly Bar lady. Accommodated 8 if us with dog. The food we ordered was made fresh. And was lovely. We ordered..Steak burger which was home made and very tasty. Gammon steak with pineapple which was thick and juicy. Southern fried chicken burger again very thick and tasty. Sweet potato fries, Bagettes , and a plateful of club sandwich and fantastic home made chips. Would highly recommend. It is a sports bar but don't let that detract you from entering. The glasses were clean and the drink lovely. Will be back

Came here for an evening meal with my family and sat in a window seat, that was a nice view. Food was really tasty- we were in Swanage for a week and it was the best chips I had all week! Also good chicken burger, everyone was happy with their meals. I would recommend and will revisit if I come back to Swanage

Stayed here on a waling holiday. A very disappointing experience. My room facing front of the street was large but it like the rest of the place is in need of much TLC. There is no WiFi in the rooms or breakfast room. Our rooms...

5 nights in Swanage and most places shut or not taking on the door bookings but we managed to eat and drink here several nights easily enough. Basic place and food and friendly staff. Toilets bit hit and miss but food and drink just what...

The one star is for the lovely staff behind the bar. There was only 2 of them to serve drinks, take food orders to the kitchen and serve food and they did it with efficiency and a smile. We ended up going here for dinner...

This is a no frills pub which serves really good food in a friendly atmosphere with friendly staff. Would definitely recommend

Came in for a drink.. the guy behind the bar was friendly.. Very sticky floor and probably the 2nd worse toilets in the area (1st worse is the ones behind the crazy golf place) So it was an OK place whilst waiting for food a...

Good basic food Everywhere else was busy or already booked out Friendly staff, and food a good standard Husband had a drink the day before and said the barman was friendly.

We were looking for a pub for a drink and a bite to eat. The pub was rather busy outside, so we asked a female member of staff if they had perhaps further seating or a garden to which she rudely bellowed “do you want...

We have been staying in Swanage for a week and have eaten at the White House Inn twice, both times the food has been excellent as was the service even though the place was very busy both nights we visited.

Went to this pub for a meal taking advantage of eat out scheme ,we had the steaks which were on the tuff side & chewy there did not appear to be much self distancing being observed when we visited.

Great Full English breakfast. Hits the spot and not the pocket with toast and hot drink in the price.

We found this pub and decided to stay friendly staff great breakfast big rooms, our room was not really good for tall people as we had the back room but overall room good everyone was so accommodating will see you again. And our car made...

This pub supports ‘Eat out to help out’ - and they don’t take bookings. We went tonight as a family of 4, got a good table prior to 6pm when food starts to be served. Staff very helpful and pleasant even when fairly busy. Organised...

Myself and a group of 3 mates are down in Swanage for our annual holiday, we visited the white horse first on saturday and now I'm here on Wednesday having my fourth full English breakfast here. Quality:Check, Quantity:Check and Service:Check. Will be returning consistently for...

Down to earth pub with consistently nice food. The Staff are hardworking and put a lot of effort in to make customers happy.

Well what can I say.. Me and my bf stayed here for 3 nights,. We had the best time ever.. We met alot of lovely people sat outside the pub.. Staff were amazing.. Ross the owner was lovely bloke and so was his girls.. They...

The white horse, spectacular hospitality and very helpful and friendly staff.The food is also tremendously tasteful and worth every penny ( I recommend the hunters chicken or steak and ale pie ) At this time of worry about the pandemic, everyone worries about being out and about and around others, however the white horse is very good with its distancing rules and sanitisation to keep everyone safe and happy just like the old days.Overall I definitely recommend either going out for a good meal of just experiencing the amazing feeling of a real British pub with the joyful locals.

Really nice pub with very friendly staff. They are very accommodating when asked to adapt dishes from their menu. All their food is very delicious.

Called in for lunch on Sunday 23rd February 2020. A basic pub geared to attract sports fans watching sky sports or similar. Televisions on nearly all the walls in the bar. Lunch was of reasonable quality and price. That’s about it really.

Popped in for breakfast with a friend on a recommendation. The food was good, well priced and the staff were friendly.

Dropped off from the coach started raining walked into Swanage past first few eateries saw the White horse read the menu outside which seemed ok ordered our food a sharing starter it was great lovely service and couldn't do enough for you thought we might need a pudding but there was plenty so would recommend very much

From the first email to them to the final point when we left the White Horse the staff were so helpful and went out of there way to accommodate me the wife and our daughter as we were staying there to see The Mafia band as this is my daughters favorite. I wish that I could have eaten more of my breakfast (sausage and bacon sandwich) the next day by I had drank to much of there Doom bar the night before and I was slightly jaded!! lol will come back for sure as this place is well located in the heart of Swanage and good base , Keep up the good work all !!!

We had an evening meal of steak and steak and ale pie. The steak was very good cooked well with lots of extras. The steak pie was amazing, packed full of tender meat with lovely potatoes and peas. Service really friendly and fast. Next time in Swanage will definitely go again.