The Crossing in Barnes is surely designed with the mothers of young children in mind. The place feels so clean that little Tarquin with his pals Myrtle, Magnolia and Fabian could lick the floor and ingest no bugs or bacteria. For the place is as spic and span as the surrounding environment is leafy. And sure enough, as my lunch progressed, part of the pub filled with mamas and babas. It’s an astute ploy of course. Parents of young children are keen to be out of the house and lurk where they are welcome and feel safe –and if the pub can wow them with an intelligent wine list at night, it could be quids in.

This establishment was surely a reliable local across the decades and a century. But now if you turn up with so much as a little mud on your trouser hem I suspect you might be asked to take a shower before you take your seat.

The design and décor are clean too. A shiny bar, sandblasted bricks around the old fireplaces, pale wooden tables, and chairs that seem more pristine community centre than village pub.

It’s a little at odds with the photograph of the Rolling Stones that hangs over one fireplace: in front of the smoky ruin of an old building in the countryside, the unwashed rock’n’rollers loll about in long grass.

It’s at odds too with the food I ate: rural, rustic and filling. And here I detect the hand of the chef Anthony Demetre, who consults on the menu. He is an exacting and tidy chef who loves butter and cream and the gutsiest food of France. The glorious point being, Mummy and Daddy can get their fill, and sip magnificently, while the little urchins roll around on the floor.