Pall Mall

So we turn the corner and begin our progress along the side of the board from the Jail to Free Parking. The first square, Pall Mall, also allows us to indulge in some more pub facts with which you can bore your friends and enemies alike! Firstly, Pall Mall takes its name from the croquet-like game of “palle-maille” which used to be played on the site of the street in the 17^th century. And if you haven’t bored your audience to death with that one, try telling them that Pall Mall was the first public street to be lit with gas street lamps in 1807. I thank you and good night…………….!

If you check any of the other blogs or sites about the Monopoly crawl, you’ll see that they nearly all visit either The Red Lion or the Golden Lion pubs when visiting this square. These pubs lie either end (almost) of the Crown Passage, a little backstreet connecting up Pall Mall to St James’s Street. Needless to say I was delighted when I checked the Cask Marque website to find that both of these pubs have Cask Marque accreditation, as does the nearby Blue Posts in Bennett street and a Friday evening after work drink, ready for the Bank Holiday seemed like an ideal thing to do especially if a 3-scan haul of pubs could be achieved.

Raking up the regular old soaks from work was fairly easy, with Aussie Pete, Charlie and Rob all leaping onto the merry Monopoly band wagon. But a last minute substitution had to be made when we had to replace Spiky haired Ed with New Guy Mickey as Ed had “got a better offer”. Well Ed, all I can say is I hope she was worth it! Splitter!

Alighting from Green Park tube it was an easy stroll along Piccadilly, carefully stepping over the sleeping bagged homeless outside The Ritz, and cutting down St James’s to find the Blue Posts.

Getting our hearing back outside the Blue Posts

 

Well easy that is unless you’re Aussie Pete, Rob and New Guy Mickey who went bowling up Piccadilly until they reached Regents Street, failing completely to see Charlie frantically waving his brolly like a demented tour guide. Finally gathering ourselves together we entered the Blue Posts to a cacophony of noise and crowded bar to squeeze ourselves behind the table with the tiniest amount of leg room in the world. The Blue Posts is another Taylor Walker pub and it looks like they had also been given the same delivery of country flags as had The Royal George (see Euston Road) but despite the jolly decorations the place was so full and so loud, conversation was impossible. Obviously the bar manager had also decided he thought the level of chat was too much so he whacked up the volume on the stereo system and made even hearing your own voice difficult. The beer choice was pretty basic also with the standard offerings of Wells’sBombardier, Young’s London Gold and another two equally ubiquitous ales. There was also Meantime’s Pale Ale but unfortunately Charlie and I only spotted this as we were leaving clutching our bleeding ears. “Where’s your Cask Marque certificate?” I yelled at the barmaid as we made our escape. “It’s out the door by the stairs” she replied, speaking through a megaphone. I knew at this point that it wouldn’t be. This has happened in the past, the person thinks you mean the Cask Marque plaque outside the pub and hasn’t got a clue about the certificate or the Ale Trail. The only thing Aussie Pete and I could find were the leaflets advertising the Ale Trail but by now with the tinnitus ringing in our frontal lobes we elected to forgo the scan and go somewhere quieter.

The somewhere quieter was the Golden Lion on King Street although with the Friday night crowd spilling out on the street from this tiny little pub we’d hardly found a silent oasis. That said the first improvement was the beer range with another Meantime product, London Lager being the choice of Charlie and myself. This instantly got a thumbs up from the BGC side of me as it came in a handsome stemmed goblet.

Either I like the glass or I've just heard Mickey's cousin owns a strip bar!

 

Rob was slightly less enamoured with his bottle of Bud. As someone who thinks he’s being adventurous when he puts two sugars in his tea Rob is very much a person who prefers the safety and standard of American Budweiser and when the pub could only supply the far superior Czech Budvar I thought he might enjoy the change. He didn’t. J

Anyway, back to the pub, which is a tiny but beautiful thing with its stylish stained glass and lovely semi-tiled bar. The Cask Marque certificate was proudly displayed behind the bar but was screwed to the wall meaning the assistance of the bar staff would have to be called into play to obtain the scan. My lovely barmaid was only too happy to take my phone and scan it for me meaning I’d captured what could be one of the harder to get scans. I bet there are not many pubs who keep their certificate nailed behind the bar!

When we joined the milling throng outside there was then the realisation that this was a seriously posh area of London. I’d commented in the last post that there were some seriously “nice” houses in Islington but this area is a class above. There’s money and there’s old family money belonging to the rich and privileged who wouldn’t think twice about spending the price of a family hatchback on a pair of red stilettos………and that’s all I’ll say on that matter.

Front of the Golden Lion - I've just spotted the shoes.

 

So finally after repeated photo calls we made our way down the Crown Passage to the Red Lion and stepped into a different world. Firstly we gone back 30+ years in terms of décor with a swirly pattern carpet and wooden and wrought iron bar but also gone somewhere else complete geographically with a pub that could easy fit into a backstreet of any town or city the length and breadth of the country. This wasn’t central London surely? There was no pretence, no bunch of “suits”, no young and beautiful admiring Prada handbags, in fact there wasn’t many people at all………….but it was heaven!

And for my next trick I will pour a pint of stout whilst mixing a Bloody Mary!

 

We spotted the certificate but wait, what’s this? It also fixed to the wall in this pub but this time right at the back of the bar, hiding behind some bottles of spirits and an electric fan………..what are the chance of that happening (yeah, I know I’ve done that joke before!) “Any chance I can scan your certificate?” I asked, feeling fairly sure the barmaid would refuse to let any old stranger behind the bar. “Yeah, no problems” she calmly replied as she turned to serve someone else. “How many times have you had to let people do that?” asked Charlie, “Oh, you’re the first” she answered. Oh……….WOW!

Outside the Red Lion

 

Feeling very privileged I then bored everyone rigid by explaining that the Adnams Southwold Bitter didn’t smell off but rather this was how it was meant to smell (a Southwold Snatch rather than a Burton Snatch)  before we all negotiated the steepest stairs in the world to make relieve ourselves in the downstairs loos. The Red Lion is worth a visit for these alone!

Number of Cask Marque Pubs visited  = 55

Three scan haul? = No, but two very select ones!

Message for the barman? = Turn it down guv’nor!

Next Stop = Electric Company

Old Kent Road

Ask anyone to name a square on the Monopoly board and there’s a pretty good chance they’ll name the Old Kent Road, the very first square on the board and the one which yields the least amount of money when an opponent lands on it. It’s also the only property that lies south of the river Thames. In fact, it not only lies south of the river but in comparison to how the other properties are all clustered around the square mile, it lies a long bloody way south of the river! To make matters even worse, checking out the Cask Marque website it would seem that the nearest Cask Marque pub is the Kentish Drovers which is even further away, another kilometre or so south on Peckham High Street.

As any regular visitor to London knows the south isn’t served very well by the Underground with only a couple of the lines venturing under the river. The nearest station to the Old Kent Road is the Elephant and Castle and it was one Tuesday evening that I found myself wandering the labyrinth of the subway that weaves its merry way underneath the Elephant and Castle roundabout. Seriously, no matter how good your sense of direction you seem to pop up nowhere near where you were heading!

Pink Elephants but no Delirium Tremens.

Upon venturing above ground the first sight that greeted me seemed very familiar but was one I couldn’t out my finger from where I knew it. The sign said “The Charlie Chaplin” but it was almost as if I was seeing a photograph in real life, ah well perhaps it would come to me later on.

In order to get my bearings I checked the Cask Marque app and discovered that whilst the Kentish Drovers was near to the south end of the Old Kent Road, just off the Elephant and Castle roundabout was another pub, the Rockingham Arms which is about the same distance away from the Old Kent Road as the Kentish Drovers but this time from the north end. Deciding that this would be by far the more sensible of the two to visit I made a quick dash down the New Kent Road to the very start of the Old Kent Road, took a photo to prove I’d been there and then dashed back again to the Rockingham Arms.

If you look very closely the sign does say "Old Kent Road".....honest!

The Rockingham Arms is part of the Weatherspoon’s chain and whilst I have much respect for the great work they have done (good ranges of cask ales, fantastic value and keeping many a run down corner of the high street trading) they can also be awfully identical, impersonal and pretty bland. The Rockingham Arms was always going to have its work cut out anyway. Housed in what I’ve learnt from the Weatherspoon’s site was the former HQ for the Department of Heath and Social Security it looks like something that been transposed from 1970’s East Germany. This has to be one of the ugliest buildings ever. The large plate glass frontage has all the style and welcome of a carpet salesroom and the interior décor (which looks like a cross between a run down cinema and a run down amusement arcade) does nothing to improve this.

That said, it was clean and far from overcrowded although there was the perennial Wetherspoon’s clientele that seem to always be there no matter what Wetherspoon’s you visit. The range of beers was pretty basic with only Greene King Abbot Ale, Ruddles Best and London Pride on draught, and when you see London Pride being described as a Guest Beer (in London no less!) you do have question whether this pub needs to ask their supplier a question or two.  Service though was lightening fast, I reckon my meal came within 10 minutes and the pint of Ruddles Best was actually very nice, and a £1.85 a pint can you really complain?

Return to Stalag Luft III

 

Bar at the Rockingham Arms, Cask Marque certificate on the right.

Final word on the pub was a visit to the gents which felt like wandering the corridors of a cruise ship before you could do your business…………perhaps the former employees of the DHSS were only allowed limited comfort breaks?

Keep going for the loos............

With the proudly displayed Cask Marque certificate snapped I was on my way again, via the slow train from Waterloo to Reading which seems to stop at every village and hamlet on the way. If you’re ever on this train, check out the recorded announcer’s voice when he calls the station names. He obviously hates the journey to the next place, but loves arriving. “The next station will be Ascot” and the voice is all sad and depressed, whereas “This is Virginia Water” is yelled with a high rising inflection that would make an Aussie blush. Ah well, kept me awake……..just, and then I realised where I’d seen Chaplin’s Bar before! Page 72 of The Rough Pub Guide by Paul Moody and Robin Turner, which says it should have been pulled down in 2010. Perhaps the demolition crew are lost in the subway?

Number of Cask Marque Pubs visited = 34

Number of amusing people seen = 0

Next Stop = Community Chest?