London pub crawls

Chancery Lane

In July 2019, Tony took a short crawl around Chancery Lane.

We met at the Inn of Court, a Fuller’s pub on Holborn, a stone’s throw from Chancery Lane station on the City of London’s western edge. It’s a newish pub but decorated classically, with the classic range of Fuller’s beers, and takes its name from the legal institutions based in the area; the pub itself was once a bailiff’s office. Staples Inn, a few doors to the west and straddling the City boundary, has London’s last remaining domestic 16th century facade, and used to feature on the packets of Old Holborn tobacco, which was originally produced in an alley of Holborn.

A short walk down Furnival Street brought us to 26 Furnival Street, previously the Castle until the building was redeveloped and the pub was reborn a few months ago. Although only a few months old, and in a building dating back to 1901, there’s been a pub here since 1541. The newest incarnation is as small as its predecessor but very nicely decorated and with a good range of beers for a cosy venue.

At the end of the street lies the Draft House, another recent opening, a new pub in the ground floor of a new office development. While 26 Furnival Street retains the small corner pub footprint of its predecessor, the Draft House is huge, with a large terrace area it spills out into, and a wide range of draught cask, keg and bottled beers (and tanked Pilsner Urquell). It sits on the site of the Swan & Sugarloaf, destroyed by a bomb in 1941, but unlike its predecessor the Draft House beers are kept in perfect condition.

Back across Holborn now, and another pub below an office development, the Sir Christoper Hatton, named after a 16th century politician and courtier of Elizabeth I. The large Nicholson’s pub has a decent range of beers and a large outside area, useful on warm summer evenings.

A short step along Leather Lane lies the Argyle, a modern pub built into the corner of a residential building, which doesn’t exactly have kerb appeal; but that’s a failure of a 1970s architect rather than the pub management, who’ve done a great job on the inside, and indeed on the outside terrace on the 1st floor. We had a friendly welcome and enjoyed standing outside on the terrace on a warm evening watching the street below.

Around the corner lies Hatton Garden, London’s jewellery district also named after Sir Christopher Hatton, and at the corner of Greville Street lies the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit, which was famously robbed in 2015.

Hidden just off Hatton Garden is Ely Court, the tiny alleyway which is home of the Ye Olde Mitre, one of London’s unique and historic pubs. Dating from 1546, the pub lies on land which was formerly part of the Bishop of Ely’s palace and as such was officially in Ely, Cambridgeshire, rather than London.

Crossing over the Fleet Valley into Smithfield, we came to the final pub of the night, a second Draft House, in an interesting location overlooking Smithfield market, but painfully loud music which pushed all the customers into the street. But the beer selection draught and bottled, was excellent, and lubricated our pavement deliberations of Pub of the Crawl.

Although the Olde Mitre can’t be beaten for history, or the Draft House for range, we plumped for the Argyle, which gave us a friendly welcome, good beers, and a surprisingly well appointed roof terrace on which to enjoy our drinks. Congratulations!

Vauxhall – Kennington – Waterloo

In June 2019 Dimo took us for a walk from Vauxhall to Waterloo via Kennington, in London’s sunny southern side.

We met at Mother Kelly’s, a relatively new offshoot of the Bethnal Green craft beer house, also located in a railway arch but somewhat larger than the original, and a very convenient meeting point, with tables with a view of MI6 headquarters across the street. They certainly serve a wide range of draught drinks, with 24 beers on tap at the time of our visit, as well as draught cider, wine and even Martini – which is presumably handy if James Bond nips across the road from his office for a swift one!

A short walk to the east took us close to the Oval’s famous gasholder and the Pilgrim, a busy modern pub with a large outdoor area; last time we came here on a crawl it was being refurbished, so nice to come back with it in all its modern glory!

A short walk across Kennington Lane brought us to the Duchy Arms, a backstreet pub which has had a recent modest refresh. It is fairly small inside, but has a surprisingly large outdoors drinking area on its former car park.

Our next call was also a smallish backstreet pub, the Oxymoron, but this one blew me away; the quirky décor was apparent before even stepping inside, and continued throughout the pub, with every surface having something resting on it, stuck on it, or hanging from it. Although there were no cask ales, the keg and bottle selection was small but with some good quality (e.g. various Kernels in the fridge), and more importantly were served by a friendly and welcoming landlord. The pub boasts not only a lovely pub dog but also a pub crow, who was taken for a walk around the pub while we were there.

Closer now to Lambeth North, we called next at the Tankard, part of the Draft House chain, so whether it will stay branded as it is for long now that it’s part of the BrewDog empire I don’t know. But for now at least it retains an extensive range of beers from across the UK and beyond, including the largest range of alcohol-free beers I’ve ever seen in a pub.

Continuing on towards Waterloo, we came to the Duke of Sussex, a smart, modernised pub which has benefitted from having a very large terrace area to the front; inside the beer fridges are up high behind the bar, which I thought was a great innovation to allow customers to see the full range of bottles and cans without having to lean over the bar and peer between the bar staff’s legs.

The final stop was just the other side of Waterloo station, the Waterloo Tap, tucked under an arch close to the South Bank and sister pub of the well known Euston Tap (and a few others). It’s quite small but manages to pack in 20 taps of excellent beer, plus a few in the fridge.

Time was getting on by this point so this was the end of the road. After a short discussion, the Oxymoron won the Pub of the Crawl hands-down, congratulations!

City & East End

On a chilly January evening in 2019, Artie kicked off the year with a crawl from the heart of the City into the East End.

We met at the newish Crafty Fellas in Leadenhall Market, which has taken over a unit tucked away in the market’s side alleys, bringing the pared-back industrial craft beer vibe to unusual City surroundings. They have a wide range of craft beers on draught or bottle, and space to drink inside or out (but still under cover), though the crowd was rather thin on our visit.

A few minutes’ walk brought us to the Craft Beer Co., where a large range of craft beers was again on offer, as the name would suggest. We had a range of beers here, including a decent alcohol-free wheat beer from Rothaus, meaning Dry January, should you be trying it, need not keep you out not the pub.

Heading north to Devonshire Square, we headed into Pitt Cue, a fancy restaurant I’d never have thought of venturing into for a beer, but it turns out that it hosts the Alpha Beta brewery – possibly the only current brewery in the City? – and a stylish bar, with their own and guest beers. Drinkers very welcome, though you’ll leave hungry after the smell of the meat being cooked for the happy-looking diners.

Crossing out of the City and into the East End, the change from glossy skyscrapers to shabby East End is pretty stark, even though it’s not quite as shabby as it was when the Pet Shop Boys used Wentworth Street as their East End location in the video for West End Girls; a century earlier these streets were haunted by Jack the Ripper, as the numerour walking groups can attest. But our next port of call was the Culpeper, an ever-busy (or so it seems) lively pub with a gastro feel, though at least on a Friday evening it seems to be filled with contented drinkers rather than diners.

Around the corner on Brick Lane lies the Kill the Cat bottle shop, which has a small number of taps and a large bank of bottled beers to choose from, though be warned, the prices are high – admittedly, these are unusual beers which are doubtless not to cheap or easy to source, but do check prices before you buy, you could be ordering something rather more expensive than your usual!

Backtracking now slightly to Whitechapel Road, we heading a little further East, to Indo on the Whitechapel Road. This is a small pub which seems always to be busy, with a lively slightly punkish atmosphere, and a mix of traditional (e.g. very well kept Harvey’s Best) and more crafty beers.

Continuing along the Whitechapel Road we passed the building on the corner of Fulbourne Street where Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky met for the 1907 Bolshevik conference, the shop at no. 259 that was one the home of Joseph Merrick, better known as the Elephant Man, and the Blind Beggar, where Ronnie Kray shot and killed George Cornell in 1966. But we had time for just one more pub, so we continued across the road to the White Hart. This large and popular corner pub is home of the One Mile End brewery, the pub obviously sticks a wide range of their own excellent beers as well as a number of others, but their own Jazz Police was the pick of the evening, a very tasty cloudy 6% IPA.

So finally to the Pub of the Crawl. After much debate, including arguments about points of order and meaningful amendments (as inspired by the behaviour of the current crop of incompetents at Westminster) a motion was eventually passed – congratulations to the White Hart!

Tottenham Court Road area

At the end of June 2018 I took a crawl around the Tottenham Court Road area.

We met up across the street from the eponymous tube station in the Flying Horse, which was still the Tottenham the last time I visited (and what a better name that is!). Readers of the excellent Cormoran Strike novels by JK Rowling (writing as Robert Galbraith) will remember the Tottenham as Strike’s local, where he could often be found supping a Doom Bar. That beer is no longer available at the rechristened Flying Horse, but several well kept beers were, and the pub remains a very attractive one, with a lovely Victorian interior yet warm light coming in from the large front windows, and with fast service even after work on a Friday despite its central location. Incredibly, it is the last remaining pub on Oxford Street, London’s High Street; perhaps the shift towards online retail will at least diversify the offer on Oxford Street and other pubs will re-emerge.

From here we did a quick circular walk to look at the top of Charing Cross Road – known as London’t traditional home of bookshops, and of the wonderful collection of letters between Helene Hanff and Frank Doel captured in 84 Charing Cross Road – and into Denmark Street, traditional centre of London’s music scene. Still home to a number of musical instrument shops, it was once lined with musical publishers and recording studios, with connections to countless major stars of the 60s and 70, including the Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, Elton John, David Bowie and the Sex Pistols. It was also home of the Job Centre where serial killer Dennis Nielsen worked, while in the fictional world it is the home and office of the aforementioned Cormoran Strike.

Back at Tottenham Court Road, we paused at the crossroads, once site of a gallows and resting place of murderer John Duke, who was buried here with a stake through his body, and the site of the 1814 London Beer Flood, in which nearly one and a half million litres of beer burst from the Meux brewery – part of the site of which is now the Dominion Theatre – demolishing two houses, one pub, and killing eight people, but causing others to rush to the site to scoop up free beer from the gutters in whatever they could lay their hands on.

Continuing the book theme, we popped into Waterstone’s bookshop, which has a hidden bar in the basement, where a quiet drink can be enjoyed, surrounded by books; who says we’re uncultured?!  Worth popping in to enjoy a drink, and buy a book while you’re there – the death of bookshops would be a very sad thing indeed.

Around the corner lies Hanway Street, which has a number of independent businesses surviving, reminiscent of its past as a jumble of Spanish, Italian, Greek and other businesses. One survivor of the 60s is Bradley’s Spanish Bar, a rare Spanish pub in London, which we stopped at next. It has some Spanish beers on draught (Estrella Damm, Mahou) and some more in the fridge, but no real ales; however the Budvar proved very refreshing on a warm night. It’s very small inside, and would be very cosy in winter and there was some Motörhead playing on the classic jukebox, but given the summer heat we joined most people in the street outside.

Across Oxford Street into Soho next, and through Soho Square, laid out in 1681 and containing a hut in the centre which was built to house an electrical sub-station in 1927 but appears to be much older, to the nearby Toucan. It’s a longstanding Irish pub with Guinness the speciality, as the name suggests, and Tayto crisps. Most people were outside in the street but we headed downstairs and got a table in the very small basement bar, complete with Guinness stools, in which Jimi Hendrix played before he was was famous.

Some very short strolls now, the first of which brought us across the street to the Nellie Dean, which has stood on this corner since 1748 and is currently selling a decent range of ales (and pies!).

A short walk down Dean Street brought us to the Soho Theatre Bar, a venue I come to fairly regularly to catch a comedy show, which has a lively bar with a couple of cask ales and a wider range of kegs and bottles.

Back across the road and into St Anne’s Court we came to the blue plaque marking Trident Studios, where David Bowie recorded some of his most important hits including Life on Mars and Space Oddity. Down the alleyway opposite now to the final port of call, the Ship. This traditional Fullers pub was in full flow, with good music playing, good beers, and a lively crowd.

And so finally we came to debate the Pub of the Crawl. I think we set a record of how long it took to agree, so diverse were the options, but in the end a vote settled the winner as the Ship. Congratulations!