The Red Lion — its origin, of course, in heraldry — is considered by some sources to be Great Britain’s commonest pub name, though the Campaign for Real Ale thinks it is narrowly beaten by The Crown (668 to 704, as counted in a 2007 survey).

Anyway, it’s certainly common enough for it to be not especially remarkable that I should be following a review of one Red Lion — in Oxford’s Gloucester Green— with a report seven days later on another. What is perhaps surprising is that I should only have noticed the coincidence as I start to write.

Adderbury’s Red Lion, a handsome 16th-century one-time coaching inn, is also in, or rather beside, a green. Its mullioned windows look across the verdant expanses of what was once the county’s largest village green (why no more, I cannot say). In the days before the opening of the M40, its mellow Hornton stone walls were rocked by the endless stream of passing lorries. Now the rustic charm of the scene has returned.

Rosemarie’s vague recollection that a pal had spoken well of the food there led me to stop and investigate as we passed through the village on a recent Saturday night drive to Chacombe. Taking in both the appealing- looking contents of a blackboard menu and the comfortable feel of the place, with its ancient beams, oak panelling and antique furnishings, I decided at once to book a table for lunch the following day. We invited Rosemarie’s mother to join us.

I suppose I ought to have specified (could we have?) that we wanted to be in one of the appealing old rooms at the front of the building. In the event, we were shown on Sunday into the restaurant at the rear, a place of less character and little natural light.

Our table’s proximity to the kitchen meant a constant passage of staff beside it, glimpses of the engine room being afforded each time one of the cheery waitresses (or the no-less-cheery waiter) swung wide the door to answer the summons of the bell.

The functional feel to the room was, to put it frankly, reflected in the food that was served to us — some of it at least.

While my starter of salmon mousse (a blackboard special) was fine — a herby cake of poached salmon beneath a topping of smoked salmon — the delicacy of its flavour was impaired by the nasty, over-sweet, rather vulgar taste of the salad dressing. The roast beef that followed was of a sort that might be called institutional: grey, overcooked and showing every sign of having been sliced from the joint (if joint there ever had been in this kitchen) some time previously.

Overheard from an adjoining table at about this time was a query concerning the roast turkey: was it off the bone? The waitress’s answer was not audible, but her eyes appeared to register surprise that turkey could ever have been on the bone.

I was not much taken, either, with the bland gravy whose connection with anything meaty seemed tenuous in the extreme. It came twee-ly (and JD Wetherspoons-ly) in a little white jug. Everything else was OK though, despite being unappealingly ‘plated up’: a big, round Yorkshire pudding (another was offered but declined), broccoli, carrots, roast parsnips and roast and mashed potato.

Best came last with a plate of excellent English cheeses, Shropshire blue, Wensleydale, and Tickler extra mature cheddar from Devon. All three were in generous supply — for a very reasonable £4.49, with biscuits, celery, grapes, and red onion chutney. They also arrived, for once, not freezing cold from the fridge.

As for my companions, both reported satisfaction with their lunch (possibly they were in less atrabilious mood than I). Rosemarie had a good, fresh-tasting tomato soup, followed by shepherd’s pie made with chunks of braised lamb shoulder. It came with braised red cabbage so extensively sweetened as almost to resemble a chutney. Olive passed on a starter, but enjoyed rump of minted lamb (a special) followed by a first-class steamed treacle pudding — a welcome substitution for a sold-out ginger one — with cream.