The two towns drink differently, and the difference is roughly four hundred years.

Poole has the old pubs, nearly all of them within a few minutes of the quay, several in buildings that predate the idea of a licensing hour. Bournemouth has the late licences, and a strip of Old Christchurch Road that does not really get going until Poole has gone to bed.

Both are below. Where something is a bar rather than a pub, it says so — there is no sense sending you to a club when you wanted a chair and a pint.

Poole: the old ones

Poole Arms has been on the quay since 1635, is still the best-looking building on it, and serves fresh seafood alongside rotating cask ales. A few doors along, The Quay is a Hall and Woodhouse pub with a terrace and enough shuffleboard, darts and pool to fill an evening.

Up in the old town, Brewers Arms brews on the premises and pours its own beer next to guest ales, in a Grade II listed building. Antelope Hotel is a traditional pub with rooms in a building that has been standing since the 1500s.

Foundry Arms on Lagland Street has real ales, live music and a beer garden. George Hotel is the one for the football, with cask and guest beers and a sunny garden. Slug & Lettuce on the high street is the chain, and does what the chain does — cocktails, pub food, garden.

Bournemouth: a pint and a chair

The Mary Shelley in St Peters Quarter is the Wetherspoon, open from eight in the morning for breakfast and running to the early hours. The George Tapps on Old Christchurch Road is built around live sport and serves food until nine, as does Brass Haus on Westover Road, which has a weekday happy hour. Slug & Lettuce on Richmond Hill is the Bournemouth branch.

If it is the beer you care about rather than the night out, All Hail Ale is the one — a micropub and bottle shop pouring independent cask and keg, with cans to take home.

Bournemouth: later

Canvas is an award-winning loft bar and live lounge on Poole Hill, with weekend acts and a private Green Room. Eden Garden on Terrace Road is a garden bar and live music club with a heated terrace and a roof that opens, which in this country is optimism worth rewarding. 1812, inside the Royal Exeter Hotel, does live music and cocktails with a happy hour from five every day.

Then the proper late ones. Camel runs two floors on Old Christchurch Road, Wednesday to Saturday. Lost is a cocktail bar and club on Commercial Road with resident DJs and tables you can book. Barbaras Bier Haus is Bavarian-themed and open until three most mornings, a fact best considered in advance rather than discovered.

Worth leaving town for

Haven House Inn sits on Mudeford Quay looking across Avon Beach to the Isle of Wight, and is the answer to "somewhere for a Sunday". The Porterhouse in Westbourne is a one-bar Marston's local — it was the Old Thumper — with cask ales and live music. Jenkins & Sons in Penn Hill is a bar with a wood-fired pizza kitchen, and runs wing, steak and pizza nights.

Opening hours move around out of season, and late licences move around full stop. Check the listing before you go.