The Bulls Head Chiswick

It is fashionable to decry as a terrible cliche the claim that London is a series of villages that happen to have bumped into each other. Nevertheless, the portion of Chiswick known as Strand-on-the-Green, bordering the River Thames, is a perfect example of London village life. It is even unlikely that the residents acknowledge that [...]

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Britannia Pub Kensington

Kensington is both an ancient settlement and a young part of London. Recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086as Chenesit, the region just to the north of Kensington High Street from The Britannia has been a settlement ever since. At one time a manor of the Earls of Oxford, in the 17th century it became [...]

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Blue Anchor Pub Hammersmith

As one would expect of a riverside pub situated between the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race start by Putney Bridge and the race’s finish at Mortlake, the Blue Anchor is a rowing pub. It is also a smallish pub, which maximizes its seating area with benches outside on Lower Mall. You are informed as you [...]

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The Wenlock Arms

The Wenlock Arms is a destination pub in a quiet corner of London, just at the edge of the City but without sharing the City’s wealth and just on the edge of Islington with sharing Islington’s designer chic. It is in a rather forlorn locality that is a mix of houses, light industry and warehouses [...]

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The Washington Belsize Park

A modern, food-oriented pub set in Victorian surroundings, The Washington must surely be unsurpassed — in North London certainly — in terms of the sheer number of original fittings.

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Spaniards Inn London

The Spaniards Inn is one of London’s most famous pubs, and this means that it is very much on the tourist trail but still very much worth a visit. As much remains unknown about the pub as is known. There are about as many theories as to the origin of the name as there are [...]

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Southampton Arms Kentish Town

The secret of the Southampton Arms is simplicity itself. Take a tired, run-down boozer, throw out the forlorn carpets, strip the wooden floor and decoration back to the basics, add in some former church pews and wooden tables and a wood burning fire that pierces the chill even on the coldest day, sell an ever-changing [...]

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Quinns Camden

A fine example of a modern treatment of an older interior, which works because it has been done with attention to detail by people who care. Quinn’s is an Irish pub of the best kind. London is full of Irish pubs, most of which owe no more connection to Ireland than they do to Antartica. [...]

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Princess Of Wales Primrose Hill

The ‘village’ of Primrose Hill is tucked behind Regent’s Park and London Zoo, a collection of wide, tree-lined streets and elegant houses. The hill and sloping park around it cover 112 acres; one of the highest points in London, at 206 ft, it boasts wonderful panoramic views across the city once you have puffed your [...]

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Pineapple Pub Kentish Town

Just round the corner from the Assembly House lies a more modest but much-loved local boozer of great character, The Pineapple.

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Kings Head Pub Islington

Not much a pub as a theatre with a great front of house. The King’s Head has been a pub theatre since 1969, before which the auditorium was a boxing ring. It is probably the most famous of London’s numerous pub theatres, the largest concentration of which lies in and around Islington (such as the [...]

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The Junction Tavern Kentish Town

This is just the place for a long, lazy Sunday afternoon, so don’t be put off by the dark exterior. The Junction Tavern, a classic Victorian pub a few moments’ walk from Tufnell Park and Kentish Town stations, must have worn many different masks over the years but its latest minimalist incarnation has not damaged [...]

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The Jolly Butchers Stoke Newington

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then the Southampton Arms in Kentish Town should be very flattered indeed. It has become a bit of a talking point that the Jolly Butchers, which took on its current guise in 2010 has a similar ‘Ale and Cider House’ sign to the Southampton, set up some [...]

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Holly Bush Pub Hampstead

The Holly Bush is one of London’s most famous pubs, and many Londoners are likely to have been there at some time or other. Dating back to 1643, the pub was made famous by its association with local residents. The painter George Romney lived and worked next door, and what is now the rear of [...]

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The Flask Hampstead

The Flask owes its name to a philanthropic bequest of 1689 when ‘six acres of waste land lying and being about certain medicinal waters called the wells’ were given over to the benefit of the poor of Hampstead. The wells being the only positive feature of the land, the trustees of the bequest hit on [...]

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Camden Head Angel

Upper Street, the start of the Great North Road, is a long, straight mile of little else but restaurant and pubs. Just off Upper Street, however, it is a different story, Camden Passage is a little enclave of antique and curiosity shops.

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Assembly House Kentish Town

The Assembly House takes its name from a building of 1796 that was a meeting point for people gathering together to make up a party before setting off for Hampstead Heath and other places north — the occasionally vain hope was that travelling in numbers would deter the highwaymen who infested the woods and lanes [...]

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The Albion Pub Islington

There are still cobblestones in the little village-like corner of Islington in which the Albion lives. It is a handsome Regency-style inn, although little of this is visible beneath the thatch of vegetation — ivy, wisteria, hanging baskets and window boxes — that covers the whole. Unsurprisingly, the pub has won quite a few London [...]

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The Albert Primrose Hill

The Albert is a medium-size Victorian pub which has received the modern treatment in a most sympathetic and successful fashion. Bare wood floors and a motley crew of non-matching wooden tables and chairs in different styles are in vogue, as are the fresh flowers on each table. The history is confined to the walls and [...]

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Windsor Castle Pub Marylebone

The Windsor Castle is one of the great hidden pubs of London. Although it is just off the busy Edgware Road it is unknown to all but a few who pass that way. This is a pub just as people would like to imagine pubs to be, beautifully eccentric and a total confection of all [...]

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Warrington Pub Maida Vale

An impressive frontage greets those turning into the broad sweep of Warrington Crescent: pillars of Babylonian intricacy form the main approach to the pub. Step over the Romanesque mosaic bearing the pub’s name and enter a rich and unique interior. Not all is authentic in this Edwardian hostelry, but the later additions are either sufficiently [...]

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The Victoria Strathearn Place

If you emerge from either Lancaster Gate or Marble Arch tube stations and enter the triangle of land bordered by the Bayswater Road, Sussex Gardens and the Edgware Road, you will find yourself in Tyburnia, so named to rival Fit\rovia at the other end of Oxford Street. It takes its name from the Tyburn gallows [...]

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The Star Tavern Belgravia

It is easy to imagine liveried footmen and jodpured stable lads taking their ease before the real fire in The Star Tavern, as it has something of the tack room about it. It is almost certain that such characters would have been customers when this handsome Georgian mews pub was built.

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Queens Head And Artichoke Albany Street

The Queen’s Head and Artichoke is a snugly bustling pub at the bottom of Albany Street. One of London’s best pubs for foodies, it serves excellent modern English cooking alongside a lengthy tapas menu. Food is served in the cosy downstairs bar or in the smartly comfortable first floor dining room, which is also available [...]

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Queens Arms Kensington

Considering how much there is to do and see in South Kensington it is remarkable how few pubs there are in the neighbourhood, and of those how few are even half decent. The best, by far is The Queens Arms, tucked away in Queen’s Gate Mews. Perhaps it is this out-of-the-way location that has saved [...]

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Nags Head Kinnerton Street

‘The upstairs bar was designed about a hundred years ago to encompass the frame of one working man at a time. Today this same bar is forced to accommodate 40 or 50 gentlemen, often with the effect that one of them may be expelled into the street with velocity of an orange pip angrily fired [...]

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Iron Duke Mayfair

Here cheek-by-jowl, some of the world’s richest people sit with ordinary folk and enjoy a luxurious pint of one of Fuller’s fine ales. The West London brewer certainly knows how to run a good pub and The Iron Duke, in the heart of glamorous and well-healed Mayfair, is no exception.

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The Grenadier Belgravia

The Grenadier is one of that select band of pubs that people deliberately seek out as destinations in their own right. In this case the particular attraction is the Bloody Mary for which the pub is internationally famous. On a Sunday lunchtime there is even a special Bloody Mary bar, behind which a usually overworked [...]

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The Duke Of Wellington Marylebone

Just round the bend in the road from The Windsor Castle, where Crawford Place becomes Crawford Street, is another must-visit pub. Once you know that the landlord of the one is also the landlord of the other, things will start to fall into place.

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The Antelope Eaton Terrace

The Antelope could only be in SW1. It has a feel about it. You could not pick it up and put it down anywhere else without it looking like a fish out of water. Since it is in just the right place it feels comfortable, and a pub that feels comfortable is a pub that [...]

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