93 Main St, Portglenone, Ballymena BT44 8HR
Right at the bridge on the bank of the River Bann, THE WILD DUCK INN was, not surprisingly, once called The Bridge Hotel. A hundred years or thereabouts in the past, coaches travelling between Belfast and Derry used it for their overnight stop. Its new name, chosen twenty years ago by a former sea captain owner, is in recognition of the popularity of wildfowl shooting in the area, but if it’s ducks you’re after, you do not need to put on thigh waders and trudge through muddy swamps. There are wild ducks a-plenty inside the inn, in all manner of forms and places: a stuffed one; painted ones on large and small canvases, mostly in flight; an entire family of them, beautifully coloured, on a collection of plates on a sideboard.
A steep flight of stairs takes you down from the bar to an intimate little lounge where the original plaster walls, low ceiling and thick dark crossbeams contrast sharply with the sophisticated new entertainment area next door. It is this contrast between the traditional and the up-to-date which characterises the Wild Duck Inn. If you want to sit in a quaint old-style coaching inn, guarded by pikes, armour breastplate and muskets, and watched from the mantelpiece by a pair of ‘Wally dugs’, this is the place to do it; if you choose to dance the night away or take part in a table quiz amid the most modern conditions, you need to go no further than the room next door. Don’t expect to pay the prices quoted in the 1968 menu, though. The value is good, but not this good: “Sirloin Steak 15 shillings” (75p) – that’s another contrast between the old and new, what you can expect for under a pound. I wonder is wild duck on the menu?