DEPTFORD BRIDGE (04/03/12)
After an almost two week break on the
DLR Challenge due to conflicting schedules (Tindall – spending time with his
girlfriend, going to nice restaurants and weekend trips away; Me – learning how
to play computer games again, doing a big shop and having a go at using the
hoover), we finally found ourselves sitting at home on a wet and windy Sunday
evening with nothing much to do. So we
set out to conquer Deptford Bridge. I’d
researched the area previously and found only 3 pubs so we figured it’d just be
a case of popping out for a cheeky pint or 3, jotting down some figures and
then heading home nice and early for a cup of tea. However, prior to leaving I decided to check
one more time for any pubs I may have missed, and somehow came up with
potentially as many as 13 places of interest.
We knew then that this would be another case of just ticking off a few
tonight and leaving the rest for a later date.
The venues on our list then, were as follows;
2)
Star and Garter
Our first pub of the night - The Cranbrook |
4)
The Birds Nest
5)
Little Crown
6)
Carlton Wine Bar
10)
RED
12)
57 Bar
13)
The Cranbrook
As is often the case, once we get
out on the road we realise that many of these places are either no longer open,
or we decide that some venues do not match our criteria of being a pub or a bar. Happily, we could immediately cross off a few;
Live Bar as it didn’t actually exist, The Hoy as it had long since closed down,
The Deptford Arms was no longer a pub, Greenwich Inn was in fact a Premier Inn
Hotel and Bar Sonic was nowhere to be found.
This still left us with 6 locations to get through that evening if we
could.
We began at The Cranbrook. Situated on the border of our Deptford Bridge
radius it was the first pub we came across as we made our way over by foot from
Elverson Road. At first glance the pub
looked closed. Indeed the doors when
pushed were locked. This didn’t look
promising. But as we edged our way
around the side of the building we spotted a back entrance with a guy standing
in it. Asking him if they were open he
replied yes and as we entered, warned us to ‘watch out for that one’ referring
to the barmaid. I did indeed watch out
for her for the first 5 minutes or so but she just spent the whole time reading
a newspaper so I’m not entirely sure what the man was going on about. It was probably something to do with the fact
that he was very drunk, (as was his pool playing partner) that caused him to
make this ‘hilarious’ quip as we walked past.
The two drunken Irishmen and the barmaid were the only people in the
pub. By entering the premises Tindall
and I had increased the amount of paying customers in The Cranbrook by a
staggering 100%!
The bar itself was situated in the
middle of the room and we chose to sit at it on one side so that we could ably
survey the facilities. They were pretty
awful in truth. Firstly there were hardly
any seats or tables in the whole pub, and those that were present were looking
more than a little worse for wear, as proven by Tindall as the top of his seat
came off as we stood up to leave. The
whole pub was rundown save for a half decent pool table in the corner, and it
was freezing in there as the barmaid kept opening the door so that she could
stand by it and smoke. She was friendly
however, and had the inclination to notice when we were close to the end of our
pints, quickly offering us another one.
The atmosphere was terrific only if you want to go to a place with two
drunken people shouting and making fun of each other as they miss shot after
shot on the pool table. After drinking up
we politely declined another, decided to pass on the opportunity to play on
probably the world’s oldest quiz machine and walked out, leaving the two
bickering pool players behind us.
The pub we were too scared to enter |
Next up was the Star and
Garter. As we approached it though, for
the first time on this tour we felt a little intimidated. There was a huge black guy standing on the
door, loud African music was blaring out from within, and managing to sneak a
quick peek through the gap in the blinds I quickly became aware that this was a
drinking place solely for African people.
I panicked somewhat as we approached the entrance, changed my mind at
the last minute and continued on up the road.
This was not good. We had to
enter this pub, it’s in our radius therefore we need to rate it. We decided it would be best to discuss
tactics over a beer, and fortunately enough the ‘Little Crown’ was immediately
opposite.
Little Crown is an Irish Bar. Another Irish bar. There certainly seems to be a lot of them in
the area. As if to hammer home how Irish
it was, we were greeted with ‘Galway Girl’ being played on the overly loud
speakers as we entered. Still, after our
near miss just moments before it was all rather welcoming to find ourselves in
more familiar surroundings. We grabbed
our pints for a more than reasonable price and found some empty seats. The pub was open-planned, with a dartboard
and TV screen at one end, and a jukebox that you couldn’t actually get to at
the other. The atmosphere was relaxed
and friendly enough but we soon noticed that everybody in there was at least
twice our age, and at least twice as drunk as we were. So we just cowered in the corner sipping our
pints and, keeping ourselves to ourselves, discussed tactics about how we were
going to go about entering the Star and Garter.
After finishing our drinks we suddenly felt a little more confident. I announced that we’d just walk straight over
there, enter the pub and order a beer.
So up we got, deciding against the apparent tradition here of hugging
everyone else in the bar before leaving, (as so many other customers seemed to
be doing), left the premises and crossed back over the road.
As we once again approached the Star and Garter, I swear the music had become louder and the people had become more African. We figured it best to leave this pub for now; we’ll come back on a quiet Saturday afternoon before all the singing begins.
Next up should have been Carlton Wine Bar but this place too looked a little less than desirable and our confidence had been knocked so we walked straight past. Hoping to bounce back at a more familiar venue we were disappointed to discover that The Deptford Arms had now become a Paddy Power. So we pushed on and eventually came across 57 Bar (ingeniously named, 57 Bar is a bar that can be found at number 57 on the street it is situated on). Up until this point we have only rated pubs. This was to be our first bar so it was perhaps a little unfair to be reviewing it on a cold wet Sunday evening when nobody would be going there. Bars like this are probably packed on a Friday and Saturday night, but we quickly decided that we wouldn’t much care for the sort of people that go there anyway and felt a little more at ease when rating it. There were only a handful of other people drinking there as we arrived, including what appeared at first glance to be one of the gangsters of Deptford. I’m not entirely sure what a gangster looks like, but this guy did look like how I imagined one would look, and he was on the phone telling about how he needed to ‘sort something out’. It turned out later though that he was merely discussing how he had to get some work done on an extension back home. Still, even gangsters have chores to do.
As we once again approached the Star and Garter, I swear the music had become louder and the people had become more African. We figured it best to leave this pub for now; we’ll come back on a quiet Saturday afternoon before all the singing begins.
Next up should have been Carlton Wine Bar but this place too looked a little less than desirable and our confidence had been knocked so we walked straight past. Hoping to bounce back at a more familiar venue we were disappointed to discover that The Deptford Arms had now become a Paddy Power. So we pushed on and eventually came across 57 Bar (ingeniously named, 57 Bar is a bar that can be found at number 57 on the street it is situated on). Up until this point we have only rated pubs. This was to be our first bar so it was perhaps a little unfair to be reviewing it on a cold wet Sunday evening when nobody would be going there. Bars like this are probably packed on a Friday and Saturday night, but we quickly decided that we wouldn’t much care for the sort of people that go there anyway and felt a little more at ease when rating it. There were only a handful of other people drinking there as we arrived, including what appeared at first glance to be one of the gangsters of Deptford. I’m not entirely sure what a gangster looks like, but this guy did look like how I imagined one would look, and he was on the phone telling about how he needed to ‘sort something out’. It turned out later though that he was merely discussing how he had to get some work done on an extension back home. Still, even gangsters have chores to do.
Despite not really liking the place,
57 Bar could not be faulted for its facilities.
It was exceptionally clean, had 3 floors for people to go to and listen
to bad music, and had two pool tables and even a cloakroom, handy for anybody
out there that still wears a cloak. The toilets
were also immaculate, although I did notice a chair in the corner implying that
on busier nights there’d be a guy there who would turn the water on for you and
hand you not quite enough paper towel to properly dry your hands before making
you pay him a pound.
We drank up and intended on one more
stop for the evening – The Birds Nest. I
immediately liked The Birds Nest. It had
real character. And bats. The entire ceiling on one side of the pub was
covered in paper bats. Very gothic. As was the barmaid who poured two pints
without smiling but it’s ok as that’s to be expected, it’s all probably just
part of her look. As we sat down at the
bar we noticed from the posters on the wall that they have a live band here
almost every night of the week. We were
actually a little saddened to discover that we’d just missed ‘Psychoyogi’ who
were playing here for Tom’s birthday just the night before. I bet Tom had a great night, one of his best
birthdays ever. We were rewarded though
with a different band that were just jamming, playing around with different
tracks and instruments. It didn’t always
sound great, but the energy and enthusiasm put into it by those taking part was
infectious. As we sat there astounded to
find out that there are more than 6 types of harmonica even though they do all
sound the same, we were beginning to commend the pub for its excellent
facilities when Tindall noticed loads of discarded chewing gum that had been
stuck to the posts on the bar in various places. There were also a few Chocolate Santa’s
sitting on the counter, it now being March suggesting that this place wasn’t
cleaned too often after all. To top all this,
the barmaid disappeared for a full 10 minutes at one point. Still, these are all minor quibbles, it was a
friendly place, had a great selection of beers, and a wide range of live
music. In short The Birds Nest is
probably our favourite pub at Deptford Bridge.
The George and Dragon |
Deptford Bridge has certainly been
one of the more interesting stations so far, we need to return at some point to
finally get that pint in the Star and Garter, as well as visit Carlton Wine Bar
and Red.
The Cranbrook Rating
Facilities – 2
Atmosphere – 2
Cost – 3.5
Entertainment – 3
Selection – 1 (nothing to eat except
peanuts)
Facilities – 2
Atmosphere – 3
Cost – 4Entertainment – 3
Selection – 1.5
OVERALL AVERAGE – 2.7/5
Facilities – 4.5
Atmosphere – 2
Cost – 3
Entertainment – 3
Selection – 4 (a whole separate bar
for cocktails and a decent food menu)
OVERALL AVERAGE – 3.3/5
Facilities – 2
Atmosphere – 3Cost – 2.5
Entertainment – 4.5
Selection – 3
OVERALL AVERAGE – 3/5
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