63.
Richard Bradshaw Annual Crawl - Whitsun Bank Holiday Weekend - Twickenham, Saturday 29th May 2004
Saturday 29th May dawned, and I was not up
bright and early to meet up with Richard Bradshaw etc to go on the crawl of
Getting myself into the swing of the
crawl, progress was made to the Crown, on the other side of the railway lines,
another quite average pub although the bar snacks were good. I made the mistake
of opting for Bombardier instead of London Pride, and it didn't taste
particularly nice. There weren't many seats so we had to stand near the quiz
machine. A little way up the road was the Old Anchor, a lively pub with Young's
Bitter and Special on tap, together with more exotic treats like Hoegaarden. Because most people were watching football, we
got a nice sofa seat. This pub was one of the few that I'd actually come back
to - in fact it got the highest score of the day!
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Just next door was the expensive-looking
Club House. From the outside it looked a bit pretentious, but did have three
beers on - Pride, Bass and Reverend James, woohoo!
The beer actually tasted good too, and though the inside was a bit high class,
it would have been quite a nice pub to have spent a portion of the next day
having a brunch in. Unfortunately, there was golf on rather than the play-off
final, so Andy Wright didn't order a half, whilst Matt took his back to the Old
Anchor to finish it. Richard and I stayed for a bit, admiring the golfing
statuette (Archie), whose story was told to us by the barmaid. Upon leaving the
pub, we went back into the Old Anchor (for another swift half) and to watch the
final moments of Palace's preposterous win.
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Feeling a bit peckish,
we went to the Twickenham Tup,
which was not a particularly nice pub at all. It had the look of one of these
wooden interior Hobgoblin/Firkin type places. There were hardly any seats,
possibly because there had been lots of people in there earlier, standing and
watching the rugby. The choice of beer wasn't up to much, and instead of
Courage Best or Bombardier, I had the own brand Tup
Ale which was dire. Food wasn't too bad though I suppose. A pleasant pub by the
river was visited next. It was warm enough for the staff of the White Swan to
have erected a riverside marquee which was actually doing a variety of real
ale. The full range of four beers - Courage Directors, Greene
King IPA, Bombardier and Spitfire - were available inside the pub, which
was very nice although I only had a quick look at it. Drinking by the river at
the tables added greatly to the atmosphere, and to top it off, there was even a
very old gents' toilet with a trough on three sides. However, because the beer
was served in plastic glasses, we could consume it on the way to the next pub,
thus shortening our stay.
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The Barmy Arms also had an outside drinkery, but was more geared to crowds and less quaint.
They were also trying to sell pints of Abbot at £2.75 each
!! However, they did taste rather good. Bombardier was also on. This was
a bit disappointing as a sign proclaimed that there was a large selection of
real ales which was patently bollocks. They also lacked the capacity to serve
lager shandy, having Fosters only outside and
lemonade only within. The pub though is still reasonable enough to pay a visit.
Again, plastics were involved, so we were able to drink whilst having a stroll
around Eel Pie Island.
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Back to the main part of
Twickenham, and a very, very characterless branch of
the Hobgoblin. They had
Hobgoblin, Bombardier, Shires and Directors, but there's not much more that I
can write about this place so will move on. The Fox was Matt's last pub of the
day and one in which he was obliged to drink rum and coke. I, on the other
hand, was obliged to drink Pride from one of about six handpumps.
The interior was reasonably Olde Worlde
and cosy which made up for the lack of beer. But we
had no intention of staying. The three of us went to the George, quite a swish
looking chain pub in which a chef was stoking up the BBQ for an evening of
punters. I'd had Courage Best and Bombardier already that day, so was forced to
opt for some Adnams. This was served by a bar man in
'oversized' glasses which was a crock of shit, because the lined mark was 250
ml, so we were being short changed by 34ml (a shot!) per half. We jovially
pointed out that Weights and Measures would be down on them, but I bet they are
still pulling that trick. Nothing else particularly special though.
Moving on to the Three Kings next, this
one being quite a strange pub because the doors were closed at the front in
readiness for the impending rugby crowds who never appeared. Yet another very
average pub doing London Pride (albeit a good pint of Pride) - who knows, I
might have got this one and the George confused? The interior was smaller and
more traditional. The Red Lion is quite a large pub up the road and, because it
is an outlet for the CAMRA publication London Drinker must have a bit of
beer. Not so, we only found Pride and Bombardier, but on closer inspection of
this journal, found out that in fact this was quite good for this part
of London. Nonetheless, it was more like a traditional boozer, with plush red
fabric seats, a decent tasting beer and an array of bar snacks.
With time moving swiftly on, the King's
Arms was the next port of call, and quite pleasant with the feel of a back
street local to it. I tucked into some sub-standard Brakspear
(can't imagine what the Bombardier must have been like!) whilst we speculated
as to why Adam Sharr had not been able to make it to
see us. Bored of that we then had a look at the extensive range of bar snacks,
but did not go for any this time. Back on the main road, the Prince Blucher is
quite a nice cosy, yet room-enough-for-everyone
Fullers pub with the standard range of ESB, Pride and Chiswick
which tasted quite nice. Yet again, there was not much distinctive about it,
though there was a pissed scrawny bloke who'd had too much Guinness, so we
avoided him and sat in some nice comfortable chairs instead.
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Crossing the road, we stopped for a swift
half at the Sussex Arms where we were served by a Romanian barmaid who took a
couple of snaps of us. The Sussex is a reasonable, small pub, possibly needing
a bit of decoration though I cannot remember very well. Apparently it serves
Pride and Tetley and one of these beers, I presume the Pride, was slightly
above average. Cutting down a back street took us to the Prince Albert which
was to be Andy Wright's last pub, though he was not forced to drink rum and
coke. With the memory becoming increasingly hazy, I think that this was quite a
lively local and I think had we not moved on, I would not have been too
depressed. Again a Fullers local with the usual three, the quality of beer was
good. A sensible Andy Wright went his own way.
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The final pairing involved just me and
Rich making our way up Fourth Cross Road to the Rifleman in a district that had
now evolved to Strawberry Hill. This was a slightly shabby local which did not
have many drinkers in at the time of our visit. An old bloke behind the bar was
serving Courage Best and he accused us both of being quite pissed which we
hotly denied. Unfortunately, Rich then managed to spill his half over the table
which did not help, so we decided it might be best to get them down us and move
on to the last pub of the night, the Prince of Wales. They do two varieties of Adnam’s in here, along with 6X which is what I had
and I have to say that this is superb. I only recall that the pub was very
quiet, and a reasonable place to spend some time drinking (we had pints for
some reason). Oh yes and the toilets are those ones where urinals have been
stuck onto the porcelain of a pre-existing trough so I could not pass up the
opportunity to use the more direct route...
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It must've been well after closing time
that we left, though we were not hassled by the staff, and I escorted Rich back
to the station to sober up a little and to make sure he got on the 0009 train
to Kingston. I meanwhile managed to get back to
Dan
Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com
Last updated 7th June 2004.