Great London Pubs – the Bricklayers’ Arms, Putney
This little pub just off the river Thames was CAMRA’s Greater London pub of the year in 2007, and when I visited recently I could see why.
It’s quite plain looking, a nice enough frontage overshadowed by big mansion blocks on both sides, with a small beer garden or courtyard at the side. (It was a bit cold for using that, really. In London, beer gardens don’t come into their own till June. Mad dogs and Englishmen may go out in the midday sun, but that’s only if there is any midday sun!)
Inside, there’s a huge U-shaped wooden bar. And straight away I noticed the handpumps – the whole range of Timothy Taylor’s beers. For the uninitiated, ‘Timmy Taylors’ provide a very fine range of real ales, including a splendid bitter, Landlord, as well as Golden, Mild, and Ram Tam. Very much worth drinking and if served up in good fettle, as they were here, a real delight.
The pub has been refurbished a bit – the brick walls are very modern and there’s not a lot of old wallpaper and breweriana the way some ‘heritage’ pubs like to keep things chintzy. But the solid tables and chairs and lack of pretension make this a proper drinkers’ pub.
There is food, too, though (evenings only). The pub has together with SCOFF – phone from the pub, and your food will be delivered in 45 minutes. Dishes range from standard pub fare such as steak and kidney pud to Thai green curry and duck confit, with lots of traditional and very naughty puddings – treacle sponge pudding, sticky toffee pudding, or chocolate brownies with chocolate sauce. Yum.
There are guest ales, too, if you manage to finish off the regulars and still want more.
Being in Putney, is it worth the trip out of London? Well, you can catch the District Line to Putney Bridge, and just walk across the river, so it’s not the most onerous place to get to if you’ve already headed west.
Bricklayer’s Arms, 32 Waterman Street, Putney
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I started my drinking career in the Brick in the late ’60’s. Back then it was a Watney’s pub and the favoured hangout for the local hippy population. Grubby lino, walls stained a fetching brown from decades of fag smoke, bric-a-brac covering every available space with an especially manky stuffed stoat taking pride of place above the bar.
It was also frequented by several notorious south London villains whom discretion prevents me from naming.
The tables were from old sewing-machines with the treadles still in place and there was a weekly prize of a bottle of your favourite spirit for the highest score on the pinball machine. Shove ha’penny and darts were the other sports available.
It was very much a ‘local’ and had a great selection of regulars who filled it (not very hard) on most nights.
I suppose the inevitable had to happen and it was eventually ‘upgraded’; losing, in the process, its unique atmosphere and qualities; I don’t suppose there are many pubs in London where you can get a cheese and onion roll with your pint any more-most have been turned into ghastly, over-lit, chrome and beech gastro pubs and yuppie hangouts selling shite, foreign, over-priced ‘beer’ or speciality brews for the CAMRA beer snob brigade.
I mourn its loss…