London’s Superlative Pubs

Further to my report of the summer's expedition, I present here my first list of my findings.

The First Irish Pub outside Ireland

Though a particular acquaintance of mine may be so boorish as to propose that more than half of the three hundred pubs I looked in on were different branches of “O’Neills”, pay such nonsense no heed. I endeavoured to circumvent chains of the same name and entered not a single “Slug and Lettuce”, “All Bar One” or “Pitcher and Piano”. It would be remiss of me to fail to concede that I did deign to sup in a single “O’Neills” but compensated for a perceived – and entirely mistaken – tendency to be less than original by stopping by “The Tipperary” on Fleet Street, the site of a pub since 1605 and an Irish one for more than three hundred years. Some nice panelling and mirrors, but why there weren’t Guinness-themed hats on everybody’s head, I still fail to comprehend.

London’s First (and only) Scottish Pub

Remaining with the Celtic theme, “The Rob Roy” near Edgware Road underground station displays a breadth of football memorabilia related to Scottish teams. Though the landlord was a jovial chap, the establishment had no beers of note and little to recommend it or Scottish pubs in general.

The Oldest Riverside Pub

Visible across the Thames from the friends’ house in Rotherhithe where I stayed for half of my time in London, Wapping’s “Prospect of Whitby” is a characterful 490-year-old destination with good ales and a noose hanging on the banks of the river to boot (“Hanging”  Judge Jeffries used to drink here). A haunt for artists and writers at various times, its modern claim to celebrity comprises Del Boy’s visit in an episode of OF&H.

London’s Most Beautiful Pub

There may be some competition for this accolade, but I must declare the “Warrington Hotel” in Maida Vale to be my champion. Ornate on a grand scale, if one is to close one’s eyes ever-so-slightly, one could believe one were in a Renaissance Ballroom.

London’s Best Real Ale Pub

The dingy “Bree Louise” in close proximity to Euston train station has been awarded CAMRA’s London Pub of the Year status on more than one occasion but as I was fortuitous enough - when staying in Kentish Town - to live around the corner from “The Pineapple”, I availed myself of its beer festival on consecutive evenings and supped a dozen brews. 

London’s Grottiest Pub

Whilst there may be other contenders from the three hundred pubs I visited for “most beautiful” status, “The Globe” on Lisson Grove wins this category peerlessly. Adjectives fail me.

Best Theme Pub

Though full of suits when I visited, “The Sherlock Holmes” on Northumberland Avenue wins in this category for its range of exhibits. My favourite was the Greene King “Shelock Holmes” Ale, though admittedly it tasted suspiciously like the Greene King “George Inn Ale” found in Borough.

Thrice one hundred public houses

After nineteen months of cultural enrichment travelling the world between late 2008 and mid-2010, I determined to ensure my return to the greatest city in the solar system™ did not result in immediate philistinism. To that end, I revisited a handful of the big galleries and some of the major museums as well as journeying to England’s great centres of learning in my twenty four weeks in the United Kingdom but it was my efforts as regards those smaller institutions of cultivation, the public houses (and the tasting of the beverages within), which may be judged – by others, naturally, for I would not presume to assert thus – to have reached the status of ‘art’.[1]

Ultimately, the one hundred and sixty seven days I remained in England occasioned the visitation of three hundred and fifteen such establishments. Fourteen lay outside the boundaries of Greater London and it is the other three hundred and one which constitute the pool from which I draw the observations and opinions that make up my next log entries. The reputable organisation CAMRA asserts that the capital maintains approximately five thousand seven hundred public houses but other sources count as many as seven thousand. I hope I will be allowed, therefore, to claim that my summer jaunts in the name of art and culture took me to somewhere in the region of five percent of all London pubs.

Sadly, it has been reported in the venerable Times of London that British public houses are becoming defunct at the rate of fifty two per week. For that reason it is appropriate before listing to mourn a paragon of ale houses, the “Black Horse” in Fitzrovia which served an impressive range (it was a Nicholson’s pub) when I visited on twentieth June but which will quench travellers’ thirst no more.

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[1] For a final decision regarding this, please see also my entry on beers drunk in 2010.