142. Marylebone, 18th November 2012

Avril and I decided that it might be nice to pop down to London one Sunday afternoon to have a few beers in some easily accessible pubs in the Marylebone area. After a quick look around, we went into the Chapel which is a smart gastro type pub. There's lots of pine tables, a light interior and a focus on food here (perhaps with some sort of tapas arrangement), but we elected to sit in the garden to make the most of the last of the light and also the very nice heaters that were out there which makes the garden a pretty much year round feature. We stayed quite a while and I remember an exceptionally rude man who did not acknowledge me when I held the door open for him. Beer choices were Greene King IPA, Olde Trip and Dark Side of the Moon.

Another quite trendy pub, but more in a 'newspapers on Sunday' way is the Larrick which is on a nearby corner. This is a little more traditional inside, with many original fixtures and fittings visible. The only beer that they had seems to have been Doom Bar, but they did some very nice chips.

A pub that is not trendy but which is preferable to both of the previous ones is the Windsor Castle, complete with its own sentry in a box outside. This is a magnificent place, full of tat, but unlike the rather artificial tat that you see in some pub, this tat looks as though it has been accrued organically over many years. There are also not bulky items of cookware hanging from the ceiling and instead much of it is kept neatly in glass cabinets. The pub is the home of the Handlebar Moustache Association and its eccentric feel definitely comes through well. We had a potted history from a very friendly landlord, who served us some very well kept beer with four available - two from Young's, 6X and Adnam's. A very representative picture can be found here, I think our barman is actually the guy in the picture. We stayed for a second, and nearly a third.

The Wargrave Arms is a one roomed corner pub in a traditional style not very far away at all. It's a Young's boozer, and a slightly trendy one at that, which carries an extensive array of whiskey, and also a number of dining options. We had the crisp option, and enjoyed some rather good beer whilst looking out the window at people trying to park. Beer selection extended beyond the usual Young's portfolio - Bombardier, Young's Special, Pride of Oxford and Tribute.

The next pub that we visited was the Victory which was on the cusp of being refurbished and as such had no beer left, which I suppose was understandable. It's hard to judge a pub at this stage, but I don't think it would have been particularly good had we got there a couple of weeks before, with a small flat front and a cavernous interior which extended back a rather long way. No doubt it will have bare boards and black leather sofas. Final pub of the day before the train was the Duke of York, another corner mounted pub which was fairly small and nondescript and set out in a way such that it was a bit difficult to get down to the toilet. Their beer selection was fairly pedestrian with Young's and Greene King. Cosy enough but nothing remarkable, perhaps because it was a wet Autumn Sunday evening, not the best time for beer.


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Dan Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com

Last updated 20th August 2013.