Date visited: Monday 21st September 2020
The south east of the Isle of Wight is well endowed with tea rooms, with Old Shanklin having three in close proximity. Pencil Cottage has a souvenir shop at the front, with a small tea room and larger tea garden at the rear. Open daily during the summer months, this is an establishment clearly catering mainly for tourists, but none the worse for that. The food menu is quite extensive, but the brevity of the tea menu is rather disappointing, offering local Isle of Wight or Dorset blends.
A well-filled ham and salad sandwich, chocolate cake and a small pot of green tea came to £10.75. Orders were taken from a small counter where a selection of cakes were on display, with order number indicated by a number painted on a plastic crab rather than the more customary wooden spoon.
