I’m rather biased I must admit as Compton Village Shop and Tearoom must be my favourite, especially whilst on a cycle ride, a perfect stop for afternoon tea after being out on the bike all day. When my daughter Helen asked me to write for this blog whilst she is on holiday, I jumped at the chance to share this with you.The tea-room is situated in the square of a little village called Compton, Chichester, West Sussex. There are limited parking places for cars, but plenty for bicycles by the well or alongside the shops wall. It’s frequented by cyclists, walkers and locals. The owners are very friendly and welcoming, as are their staff and have come to recognise me. The shop sells local produce, vegetables, freshly baked bread, really nice ‘special’ soaps – spiders inside ones made for Hallowe’en (not real ones) – local lavender products and honey. They also have a lot of the basics like toiletries, cereals, wine etc,. 
The tea-room has tables and chairs inside to accommodate perhaps 12-15 people and two tables outside for 4-6 on each plus an additional area to the side of the shop which is normally open in the summer. They usually have a ‘soup-of-the-day’ served with bread or a warm cheese scone, jacket potatoes with different toppings, and freshly made baps with several choices of fillings. And then there’s the cakes. And that’s what this review is really all about.
There is coffee & walnut cake, chocolate cake, Victoria sponge, lemon cake, fruit cake and a couple other different sponges. The also have flap-jacks, maple & pecan slices and two or three others. I haven’t tried them all, I normally stick to one or two different sponges – on separate occasions of course.
For my review I chose lemon cake. It was freshly made, I was the first to have a slice. It tasted just like my mother used to make. Light, fluffy and moist – but not too moist. It has a lemon butter-cream filling and topping and slices of jellied orange and lemon sweet slices. It wasn’t overly lemony to be honest. I couldn’t say that the sponge nor the butter-cream tasted of lemon. If someone had given me a taste and not told me what it was I’m not sure I would be able to say it was actually lemon cake, but on saying this, it didn’t matter, it tasted different than the Victoria sponge so obviously there must have been some lemon or something in it to make it taste that bit different. I had also had a slice of lemon cake two days previous – I told you I was a frequent visitor – and it was just as nice and consistency is the key to success. This particular day my cake was ‘free’ as I have a loyalty card and I’d managed to fill it up quite quickly. If you have tea it comes in a teapot, sizes for one or two people and also an extra pot of boiling water.
So if you are ever out and about in this area cycling, walking or whatever, then try this tea-room, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. I must also tell you that although they do accept credit cards, it is only on purchases of over £10. I know this as I’d already eaten cake and had cups of tea only to realise I didn’t have any cash on me. Frantically looking around the shop to make it up to £10 – I was on my bike so I couldn’t have anything that could be crushed and nothing too large. A bottle of wine seemed the best idea.
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