CUTTY SARK for maritime Greenwich – Part 1 (17/02/12)
Friday evening saw us get our teeth into one of the larger
stations on the DLR. We invited a couple
of friends in the form of Chambers and Clam to join us for a pub crawl of sorts
around Cutty Sark. Having lived in the
area before, I was aware of some of the drinking establishments to be found and
knew that we’d probably quite comfortably be nudging double figures in terms of
places to visit. For this reason we knew
we’d have to return once, maybe even twice more in order to wrap the area
up.
We ended up visiting 5 pubs that evening, a number that
probably should have been higher but by the time we staggered over to the
Admiral Hardy, a mixture of all the alcohol already consumed and the fact they
had a fantastic live band playing, caused us to skew our judgement and fail to
move on. A true photographer would have waited for a London Black Cab to get in shot first |
Facilities – 3.5
Atmosphere – 3
Cost – 3
Entertainment – 1
Selection – 4
OVERALL AVERAGE – 2.9/5
‘The Coach’ was situated just around the corner, backing onto the courtyard that hosts the market of a weekend. The main positive of this pub was the fact it had a roaring fire in one corner, as everyone knows that fires in pubs (roaring or otherwise) always tend to add to the atmosphere. It was just as well really because aside from this feature there was very little worth writing about. Despite the best efforts of friendly bar-staff, the pub was rather dowdy and a lack of entertainment here only heightened our desire to move on quickly.
The Coach, complete with indoor outdoor beer garden |
Facilities – 3.5
Atmosphere – 2.5
Cost – 3
Entertainment – 1
Selection – 2.5
OVERALL AVERAGE – 2.5/5
Which we did, and getting into our stride now we headed for The Kings Arms. This was more like it. The facilities instantly impressed, the bar-staff were more than happy to recommend different beers to us, and successfully passed the challenge of being able to name a beer that they stock with an animal in its title (this new game was devised after Clam stated that when it came to drinking ales he felt you could walk into any old fashioned pub in England and order something such as ‘a pint of Badgers Bumhole please’ and more often than not, actually get what you ask for).
We could quite easily have stayed here for the rest of the evening and put the world to rights, but the focus was on conquering as many pubs as possible. So before long it was onto our fourth pub of the evening, just a few feet further up the same road – The Greenwich Tavern. By this point I was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol and so my ability to judge a pub on our FACES system was beginning to become a challenge in itself. I remember the pub was large, that’s pretty much all I have written down for ‘Facilities’, and the atmosphere – although not unfriendly – was a little on the strange side. To cement this view, you only had to glance at the guy drinking at the bar who appeared to be wearing his own curtains from home, such was the flowery nature of what I’m still convinced was actually a dress. Feeling slightly out of place amongst these more eccentric types, we headed back towards the DLR station and into the Admiral Hardy. The Hardy has previously always been one of my favourite pubs, purely because of the live bands they have on. What’s refreshing also is that the bands are always young students, not journeymen guitar players who have a set list of about 5 songs, one of which is always ‘Sultans of Swing’. Not here, tonight we had a young band, playing cover versions of modern Indie tracks. Such was the quality of the music, and the uncanny nature in which the drummer (who was celebrating his birthday no less) looked like our friend PJ, we couldn’t resist but stay here for the rest of the evening. We even met a few Eastern Europeans to chat to (during which time I learnt that Slovakians don’t like to be mistaken for Polish – but trust me, their accents are almost exactly the same). As is often the case on evenings like this I came out with three friends, and yet somehow ended up returning home alone to find Tindall repeatedly burning bread in his drunken efforts to make a cheese toastie. I rejected any offer of food, preferring instead to sleep by the toilet seat, waking on occasion to vomit briefly. Part 1 of Cutty Sark was over, but I don’t think we’re even halfway finished yet.
The Greenwich Tavern |
The Kings Arms Ratings
Facilities – 4Admiral Hardy |
Cost – 3
Entertainment – 3
Selection – 4.5
OVERALL AVERAGE – 3.7/5
The Greenwich Tavern Ratings
Facilities – 4
Atmosphere – 3
Cost – 3
Entertainment – 1
Selection – 3.5
OVERALL AVERAGE – 2.9/5
Admiral Hardy Ratings
Facilities – 3.5
Atmosphere – 4.5
Cost – 3
Entertainment – 5
Selection – 3
OVERALL AVERAGE – 3.8/5Facilities – 3.5
Atmosphere – 4.5
Cost – 3
Entertainment – 5
Selection – 3
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