Bailey Bridge is a pub-restaurant on Bailey Drive in Christchurch, run under Whitbread’s Table Table brand and built onto the side of the Premier Inn Christchurch West hotel. It takes its unusual name from the Bailey bridge, the lightweight, prefabricated military bridge invented during the Second World War, which was developed and trialled just along the same road. For years it has served the kind of all-day, no-fuss pub menu associated with roadside Table Table sites across the south coast, aimed as much at hotel guests as at passing locals.
The food
The menu leans towards familiar, seasonal pub cooking rather than anything experimental: cooked breakfasts, mixed grills, pies, and fish and chips, rounded off with classic puddings like sticky toffee pudding, eton mess and brownies. It’s the kind of place suited to a straightforward lunch, an evening meal before heading back to a room upstairs, or a hearty breakfast before a day out along the Dorset coast, rather than a destination dining spot in its own right.
The setting
The dining room is casual and relaxed, with a beer garden for outdoor seating in warmer weather and a car park shared with the hotel. Cask ale is served alongside the usual soft drinks and hot drinks, and there’s a TV for sports. The venue is wheelchair accessible and listed as family and child friendly, with free WiFi throughout. Because it sits inside the Premier Inn Christchurch West site, the atmosphere is closer to a hotel restaurant-bar than an independent local pub.
Where it is
Bailey Bridge sits just off Barrack Road, within walking distance of Christchurch railway station, and a short drive from Christchurch’s priory and town centre. The address is a nod to real local history: Barrack Road was home to the Royal Engineers’ Experimental Bridging Establishment, where engineer Donald Bailey’s portable bridge design was refined and first tested during the Second World War, before being used by Allied forces around the world. A prototype of the original bridge still spans a channel on Stanpit Marsh, a couple of miles away towards Mudeford.
Good to know
Anyone planning to visit without staying at the hotel should check ahead. Local pub records note a 2024 change of use at the site, and a planning application submitted for the adjoining Premier Inn later referenced a smaller restaurant built mainly around hotel guest numbers, so hours and public access may have shifted since. For hotel residents, or for anyone who calls ahead and confirms it’s open, it remains a wheelchair-accessible, family-friendly option with parking, a beer garden and free WiFi, right on the edge of Christchurch.