There has been an unexcusable gap in my blog postings recently mostly because I am doing too much. I am still looking for the perfect work/life balance - a part-time job rather than ongoing temping (which I have too much of) so I can have more time for guiding and for relaxing too!
On Saturday night (after leading a walk in St James's) I managed to fit in the last 3 pubs of
Part Z of Londonist's 2 year alphabetical pub crawl. Out of 26 crawls I managed 10 although unfortunately I was not always able to complete the whole evening.
It was good to finish Part Z in a pub I had never previously visited. Yards from Borough High Street and
St George The Martyr Church (which I have been to) I never knew this pub existed.
The Royal Oak, Tabard Street reminded me somewhat (I can't quite explain why!) of another pub near Waterloo East. After several pints I couldn't remember the name of the pub nor the street but my description of "Coronation Street style houses" was enough for one of the London/pub aficionados with me to instantly guess correctly. The street is Roupell Street - see the photo below. The pub there is the King's Arms.
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Roupell Street, SE1. Photo by Banalities via Creative Commons
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| The King's Arms, Roupell Street, SE1. Photo by Ewan Munro via Creative Commons |
The similarity is possibly because they are both on a corner but I need to re-visit both to double-check.
The Royal Oak has a really local feel to it. Look at the net curtains in the windows.
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| Photo by Ewan Munro (who was on this same pub crawl but earlier in the day) via Creative Commons |
The Royal Oak is one of only two pubs in London (the other being in Wandsworth) that is run by
Harveys the Sussex brewers.
I know a lot of great pubs in Central London but it's great to find that there are more to discover. This is the second good one to be added to my repertoire in recent months having been introduced to the
Cleveland Arms near Paddington Station via the
London Travel Planner.
Looking at Londonist's list of their
favourite pubs in Borough and Bankside I see there are 3 more I don't know in that area. I may have to spend some of my temping lunchtimes (I am currently temping close to Borough Market) visiting a few more (drinking shandy of course)!
The author of this blog (Joanna Moncrieff) is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who specialises in food and drink themed walks in the West End.
Details of all her walks are listed here.
To sign up to Joanna's mailing list click here
Labels: Londonist, pubs, SE1