Sunday 11th October, 2009
A TedTed Production
On Sunday 11th October, 8 members met at North Station for a bus to Marks Tey, then a train onto London.
A short walk to Moorgate to stretch our legs and then the Northern Line to Clapham North. A walk through an obstacle course followed as they were digging up the pavement on the way to our first pub, The Manor Arms.
A quick check of our watches showed that we'd arrived just as it was opening time where everyone settled for a Ringwood Best at £3 a pint.
We then walked for about a minute to the next pub, the Bread and Roses. I chose Mad Goose Purity and we sat outside where Pete whipped out his banana case complete with banana!
We retraced our steps back to Clapham Common for the Rose and Crown. It is a GK pub with a variety of their beers and one guest. I Had Royal London. We decided to stop for Sunday lunch which was a full roast for £10, which seemed good value for central London. No puddings available though!
A sones throw away was the Prince of Wales, a non-GBG pub but good beer and a fantastic interior with plenty of things to look at. Now going onto halves, I had Sambrook Brewery Wandle Ale. We were joined here by John Sprunt, who had a pint as he had some catching up to do!
We walked in the drizzle across part of the common to the Windmill on the Common. A very busy pub where I had Youngs Bitter and Robin and Keith had their puddings!
We left Robin to wait for his daughter and walked now in bright sunshine through some streets with interesting houses to the Eagle Ale House where Robin was already drinking with his daughter and friends. There were 8 handpumps but only 6 beers on, one being the first & only dark beer of the day, Hornbeam Black Coral Stout, which most of us settled for. We sat outside under a large umberella.
It was another walk through somebusy streets where we looked into some estate agents windows and gasped at some of the property prices. The next pub was the Beehive, a small and friendly pub with London Pride.
A final short wals brought us to our last pub by Clapham Junction, The Falcon. It is a Nicholson pub with a really fantastic panelled interior. I had Beartown Ginger Beer, which did have a strong ginger flavour. John Durrant left us here and after Keith had something else to eat, we left for the bus stop but missed the bus. We only had a few minutes wait though and sat upstairs at the front for a good view.
There was much speculation as to what bridge we would cross the Thames, the winner being Southwark Bridge. Just missing the train, we had a pasty to tide us over and caught the 21.02 train back.
