23.
Docklands Light Railway Pub Crawl,
Docklands Light Railway Pub Crawl! This
was indeed a day of history in the making as Dave Wacey
and I planned a trip to
Getting back on the DLR to Limehouse, we milled around a bit along Narrow Street,
eventually finding the Barley Mow, quite a nice pub for the area with lots of
outside seating which we used to take full advantage of the 2pm sunshine along
the riverside. Marvellous. Greene King IPA was noted as the only decent beer. This
pub is up for closure though which is a bit of a rum do. Going a little further
along the road, we arrived at the Grapes, an excellent pub and seafood place
which we observed large plates of fish and chips at and no doubt affords fine
views over the Thames. Decent beers - Adnams, Bass
and Burton - were available though a little pricey. The atmosphere in this pub
was excellent though. Thirty yards along the road is Booty's, a sort of foody wine bar, though actually the atmosphere in there was
quite nice and we managed to catch part of Everton v
The first dire pub of the day was
encountered at Westferry, the horrible Oporto where we elected to drink keg Toby in preference to
IPA. Mind you, it was cheap, though the clientele and toilets cancelled this
out somewhat. Getting back on the DLR, we travelled
to West India Quay, where I thought that there would be no pubs. In fact we
were wrong, and we found a fine example of a Wetherspoons,
the Ledger House. This pub was bedecked in purple and metal and had a fine bar
and separate family areas. The gents' also won 'Loo
of the Year 2002'. As was to be expected from a Wetherspoons
the beer was cheap and varied - we found Abbot Ale, Spitfire, London Pride, 6X,
Directors, Ironside best, Butcombe
Gold, Ridley's Old Bob, White Star Titanic and a silly cider. Across a
footbridge, one reaches the Cat and Canary, a Fuller's pub which could be very
nice but is actually quite sterile, serving only standard beers though there is
a nice snug. Our final one in this area was the ridiculously expensive Henry Addington where London Pride at £2.90 was the cheapest
beer, Guinness being £3.20! Why this was I don't know as it appeared to be a
very standard newly constructed pub with bugger all other beer.
Fancying a bit of a break, we decided to
have a spin on the Jubilee Line and went to that wasteland that is the Dome
where there is a nice bus and rail interchange with quite a few people using it
though I'm not sure why. A few hundred yards along a deserted busway takes you to the Pilot, a good honest pub, though
quite expensive, it had a nice homely feel as we observed the half times coming
through. London Pride and Old Speckled Hen were available. Retracing our steps,
we came back to Heron Quays and got the DLR to South Quay where we found the
Spinnaker closed so pushed on to Crossharbour where
we found the George, another sedate East End boozer with a couple of old women
selling Courage Best at us. Not inspiring but at least we got the full time
scores here.
Hearty Burger King meals
in Greenwich filled us up after our walk through the foot tunnel, and we made
the Trafalgar our first port of call after having had it recommended to us. The
pub itself was getting fairly full, though it's basically an empty wooden
shell, and we could choose between Old Speckled Hen, Spitfire, Courage or
interestingly named Monkey's Magic or Trafalgar bitter. Pints were served by a
crew of barmaids and Dave and I had our own opinions which
was the best. The Yacht has to be said to have been the first pub in
which the serving maidens actually took an interest in what we were doing so we
have given them a good mark. And it felt like quite a good boozer, having the
feel of a South London pub to it. Two sorts of Adnams,
Bombardier and Spitfire almost forced us to stay. Let the record state that
this is the best pub in Greenwich. Edging towards Maze Hill, we popped in the
Plume of Feathers, a small locals pub heaving with
people getting ready for a cowboys and Indians night. Still, quite good with
well kept Pride, ESB, Hobgoblin and Adnams to choose
from.
Hardy's on the main road in Maze Hill is a big bright pub
that primarily does lager - we had lager shandies -
though proclaimed that it did Old Speckled Hen, IPA and Ruddles.
We went into the quiet side rather than the party side so were unable to see
whether this was true. Otherwise a most bland pub.
Just up the road was the appalling Victoria which we gave 0 to for atmosphere.
This is because we were alleged to have spilt some Cockney Wanker's
drink and he took exception to this after we had bolted a pair of crap halves
of Courage in interesting glasses - we had to buy him a replacement before we
could progress ... After getting a bus into Greenwich we started to feel a bit
poorly but pressed on to the Kings Arms where my memory becomes hazy. Quite a
nice lively pub if I recall correctly, with a good selection of ales - Courage,
Theakston's Best, Bombarier
and Directors. A decent pub for a session.
Crossing the road we strolled into the
Cricketers for a swift half of
Time to exit, and Dave felt he could once
again face alcohol, so we went to the rather lively Mitre
full of Salt of the Earth people. We both elected to have London Pride rather
than Courage which we had grown tired of by then. Around the back of Greenwich
we finally encountered our first gay pub at about 10.20. It was the Rose and
Crown, though you wouldn't know on immediate inspection. Shaven haired Jimmy
Somerville lookalikes in tight T-shirts serving
behind the bar gave the game away as did the number of all male couples. Beer
was OK - Pride or Adnams perhaps, maybe Shepherd Neame - though I decided to
neck mine (Dave had to visit the gents' again). Then we hit another gay pub,
the Gloucester, whose name we didn't recall at first. This had a rainbow flag
so was a bit more obvious, though I have to say the atmosphere was a bit more
welcoming. Nevertheless, similarly attired bar men and keg
ale made our stay short.
At about 10.50 we thought that we could do
one more, but were turned away by both the Gypsy Moth and Wetherspoons.
However a kindly bouncer at the latter directed us across the road to the Lord
Hood, another locals boozer where we attempted to play
pool against some larey local hustlers, and actually
did quite well. And we didn't get out till well after closing time despite the
fact that we kept on lurching around the pub to the can in a somewhat haphazard
manner. Thus it was time to end the crawl, so we ambled across the road to the
DLR which propelled us back to Bank, then the District to Victoria then to an
awaiting 1.10am Oxford Tube departure via numerous incidents of public
urination. Needless to say I felt awful the next day though Dave looked quite
chipper when I espied him at about 4 in the afternoon on Iffley
Road, must have been the lemonades. An excursion such
as this is one not likely to be repeated in a hurry, if ever. Roll on Spring and simple cycle pub crawls.
Dan
Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com
Last updated 1st March 2003.