6.
Dave Wacey belated quarter century birthday crawl of Croydon Tramlink,
After three weeks of inactivity and nearly
three months without a decently long and stupid crawl, we decided to celebrate
Dave Wacey's birthday [belatedly] with a look at some
of suburban
After alighting the Oxford Tube and
meeting Mr. Lewis at Notting Hill Gate, we travelled by District Line to Wimbledon in order to
apprehend a tram. Duly one arrived and collected us from the rather small
platform there and sped off only having to slow down a few hundred yards later
for its first stop. We stayed on till
The next port of call was Mitcham, and fortunately a 201 bus pitched up outside the
pub ready to take us there. The first of our brace of Mitcham
pubs was the Cricketers, on the green and next to the fire station. This pub
had some rather strange looking punters, most of whom were drinking lager, and
also had no Winter Warmer on which was most disappointing. Since it was still
warm, we sat in the beer garden and consumed our ales, and also took the opportunity
to sample their bar snacks which included giant cashew nuts and 'Pub Original'
pork scratchings in a most interesting of coatings. Once we had left the
Cricketers, we had elected to go to the amusingly named Burn Bullock, but it
was full of people watching the rugby and the diminutive bar maid informed us
that there were no decent beers on. This was a stroke of luck, because it meant
that we could go into the best pub of the day, the Hooden
on the Green. Since records have begun, good barmaids have been few and far
between. This one however was a rare shaft of light on a cloudy day. Instead of
going outside to enjoy the remaining sun, we stayed near the bar to enjoy her
at work, pulling pints of Spitfire and IPA. Pub was nice too with Radiohead on the jukebox and tastefully done paraphernalia
on the walls. After reluctantly leaving, we decided to get back on the tram and
head for Croydon, missing out the dodgy looking Crown
next to the tramstop.
We saw a couple of backstreet locals as we
glided over a flyover that leads down to Reeves Corner, but decided not to
bother with them and headed for the Gun Tavern. This had some quite amiable
punters smoking in the corner, some brawny barmen, big screen TV for football
results and pleasant though nondescript beer [actually it was 'slightly below
average’ Bombardier - I forget these things]. Oh yes, and the toilets had
a sheet detailing interesting facts which was nice. We strolled up
Croydon was starting to fill with lush sorts by this stage
of the evening, so we headed to the George to witness this species. This branch
of Wetherspoons had an interesting array of beers and
cheap solids. According to the till receipt, we had two lasagnes,
sausage beans and chips and lamb burger and chips washed down with two pints of
Summer Lightning, a pint of Directors and some Theakston’s
Best, though I recall having to nip back to the bar to sample a swift half of
Peregrine Porter. An interesting feature was the hole in the wall of the gents
which Smiley had to be taken to see as he didn't notice/believe it at first.
Time was marching on and we decided to get on a tram to Addiscombe,
where we found a wine bar called Clarets, which also have a well worth visiting
branch in Cheam. But this is not a standard wine bar full of arseholes - instead it sells an array of quality beers. Me
and Smiley foolishly opted for pints of 7.5% Norman Conquest 'a very smooth
beer which belies it's strength' was the comment.
Messrs. Wacey and Mason opted a half pint of the same
and a pint of sensible [though obscure] bitter respectively. Ed 'Smiley' Lewis
also disgraced himself by requesting the barman to describe all the available
ales, ordering his Norman Conquest with a 'I'll have a
Norman conquest if you please bar man' - ah, memories come hazily flooding
back.
In what turned out to be the last pub of
the evening, we went back towards Croydon to drink at
the pub adjacent to the
Dan
Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com
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