London pub crawls

Sloane Square to Battersea

In October 2019, Phil took us on our first cross-Thames crawl, from Sloane Square to Battersea.

We met at the Antelope, close to Sloane Square station, just across the boundary from Chelsea in Belgravia, as pub lies just across the River Westbourne, which now passes above the platforms at Sloane Square within a pipe. The Antelope is a classic Fuller’s pub, and its only problem is that it’s so popular that it’s often rather crowded, as it was when we met.

We soon headed off, following the Westbourne to the Orange, overlooking Orange Square (named after the House of Orange) and its statue of Mozart. The Orange was a brewpub once upon a time, but is now a very pleasant gastropub, the drinking area at the front is quite small and was already busy with a Friday night crowd when we were there.  Some of us had the N1 which was remarkably fresh tasting.

On leaving, we soon passed the church of St Barnabas, site of riots in the mid-19th Century and the ‘Popery in Pimlico‘ scandal, 200 years after the birth of William of Orange anti-Catholic feelings were still festering. At the end of the street came to the Rising Sun, a large and bright Young’s pub, with friendly barman.  The whole the pub was lacking atmosphere at the time of our visit with its bright lights and only one hand pump, the ale from which was past its best.

A short walk brought us past the last remnants of the Grosvenor Canal, which once brought barges as far as Victoria Street until Victoria railway station was built on top of the most of the canal, the basin area was quiet in stark contract to its history.  First a waterworks up to around 1850, drawing drinking water for London by the late 1800s the dirty tidal canal stood on top of a sewer and a pumping house was built, this is now awkwardly situated disused and behind the modern buildings flanking the canal.

 We crossed Chelsea Bridge, making this the first of our crawls to cross the Thames.  The original bridge, when it opened in 1850 was named Victoria Bridge but it was soon deemed inappropriate that a doomed bridge likely to collapse should carry a royal name.  The well lit replacement was the first self supporting suspension bridge of its kind in the UK.  To the east of this the Grosvenor Bridge was the first ever railway bridge to cross the Thames and it was underneath the approaching viaduct we were heading next.

We descended in a rather small and gloomy lift to the Thames Path – the stairs being closed for construction – and passed under the railway into the environs of Battersea Power Station, now a substantial way through its rebuild and with the first buildings hugging the western side complete. They have done a nice job of bringing the railway arches back into use, and one of them houses the Battersea Brewery, and another next door is its bar and taproom. This was very nicely done, with a wide range of beers as well, of course, as their own.  Most of the house beers are keg beers but there were also 2 hand pumps on offer.

Battersea Brewery

Around the corner we stopped at Wright Bros, which is ostensibly an upmarket seafood restaurant but also has a bar and a range of beers at decent prices, and it has a lovely view to the river.

We then followed a temporary road through the building site around the Power Station to Nine Elms Lane, and to another new development slightly closer to Vauxhall, where the Nine Elms Tavern lies at the riverside end of a large new apartment building. The pub has been fitted out well and was doing a decent trade even quite late on the Friday night.  For an area devoid of culture, including the US embassy, this bar was a welcome surprise.

This brought us to the end of the crawl; after a short vote, the Battersea Brewery was unanimously voted Pub of the Crawl. Congratulations!