“When I grow rich” say St Leonard’s Shoreditch

We’re nearly there dear faithful reader, we’re nearly there, and if I take the sort of liberties I did with this one on the final two I could even get it all complete before the year’s out.

Details of the exact nature of the “liberty” need explaining but can basically be summed up by avoiding actually visiting the church in question. The church was St Leonard’s in Shoreditch and even a very scanty investigation shows that this is actually quite an interesting church with many more than three interesting features which I could have referred to had I bothered to do any sort of a talk in front of the place. But the problem with this particular place, a bit like Edward the First supposedly said about the Scots (well according to Mel Gibson he did) “The trouble with Scotland…is that it’s full of Scots” and the trouble with St Leonard’s Shortditch is that it’s in Shoreditch.

Nothing against the area directly but it’s off the beaten track even if you’re travelling from within London, but if you’re having to plan an expedition from Wimbledon it’s even more of a logistical nightmare to get too and would eat into any reasonable person’s drinking time much too much. And secondly, although I do have nothing against the area, honest I don’t, it is full of the young hip and trendy and neither I nor my tourist partner on this evening could be bothered having to fight off thousands of men in skinny jeans, combing out their beards and talking about which cereal bar to visit next.

That’s not to say that either I or my tourist partner for the night aren’t young hip and trendy of course. I fulfil at least two of those roles and Spikey Haired Ed fulfils all three and several others more besides. And now that all the female readers of the blog have their appetites well and truly whetted we can reacquaint ourselves with Beckenham’s answer to all four members of Blue.

Poor Ed had been absent from the tour since May and had missed all the visits we’d made since then due to either enforced work which had taken him all round the country, or better offers from more attractive people than me – hard to believe, but there you are.

Anyway to celebrate his return to the fold and to get some half decent conversation I suggested a quiet duo-tour of just him and me and it was just that niggling issue of having to trudge up to Shoreditch that was the problem.

And how did we solve it, by simply not going there, and instead heading to four Cask Marque pubs around Liverpool Street Station that I’d never managed to scan before and making sure that we at least glanced in the direction of Shoreditch at least once.

Our meeting point was The Magpie in New Street which is directly opposite the entrance to the station as long as you can safely cross Bishopsgate without getting run over by a suicidal hipster bearded cyclist, who is probably on his way home to Shoreditch. The pub is at the end of New Street and just around the corner is the City of London Police’s station in Bishopsgate which means you get panda cars (do they still call them that?) having to slowly crawl through the hordes of drinkers who have straggled outside onto the pavement.

Hordes of drinkers.....

It’s a Nicholson’s place and features much of the dark wood and shiny brass that their places always seem to feature. Tonight the hordes had well and truly straggled outside, most probably because the pub was filled to the rafters with pre-Christmas drinking city workers no doubt swilling down one or six before their trains home (apart from the Shoreditch hipsters that is). As I arrived earlier than Ed I squeezed my not inconsiderate frame inside and somehow managed to find myself at the bar placing an order in much less time than it should have taken. I plumped for the only thing I could see, a pint of McEwan’s Signature, and a pre-arranged pint of Becks for Ed. I did take a quick glance round for the certificate but with the amount of people inside I would have had more chance of finding a dropped contact lens than a random QR code.

Achieving more than Ed...

Straggling outside with the best of them, I positioned myself on the corner of the street and awaited the arrival of the great coiffured one, which gave me chance to read up about Mr Nicholson himself. He arrived without a blast of fanfaring trumpets (Ed I mean, not Mr Nicholson) and we commenced a good old round of moaning about work with Ed definitely taking the lead. So much so in fact that I was waiting at least 20 minutes with an empty glass while Ed barely took sips between slagging everyone else off.

Woodin Shades....and hordes.

Finally taking the hint that was getting pretty thirsty we moved on to the next venue, another Nicolson’s pub called The Woodin Shades, which is on Bishopsgate itself and was unsurprisingly just as rammed as The Magpie. Queuing took us slightly longer this time, much down to Ed’s lack of presence at the bar but we did emerge with a pint of Big Hop Little Beer (yeah, me too?) from Firebrand Brewery and another pint of generic lager.

Ed uses all the powers of his presence. Look at that barman taking full notice of him.

Again with no obvious signs of the Cask Marque certificate we retired outside to continue the moaning and did this very well for the next ½ hour or so.

Our next stop was not a Nicholson’s pub and is instead owned by the Metropolitan Pub Company with whom we’ve drank before in The Phoenix (where Mr Cheese had a Scotch Egg) and The Old Tea Warehouse (where Nicole told me that Gemma was pregnant (she wasn’t)). They at least make their pubs look like independents, and this particular pub, Kings Stores, was a curious mix of City boozers and people trying to look hip and trendy without having to bother to go to Shoreditch. Anyway it was a nice change from the rather identikit look of the previous two Nicholson’s.
What hadn’t changed though was the crowds and it was rather a scrum again to wedge our way to the bar but my presence was obviously working better than Ed’s as I instantly caught the eye of the young and attractive bar maid and put our orders in for a pint of Estrella and a pint of Urban Dusk from Redemption Brewing, much to the disgust of the chap three down the bar from me who felt he was certainly next in line.

Urban Dusk.

Still, survival of the fittest and all that, we made our ways outside again and took up a good observational position on the other side of the road which gave me a great view to see the “old man” detailing on the outside of the pub and some bloke walking a pit bull terrier have to drag it away from humping some innocent drinker’s leg.

Note the old man heads on each column.

The final scheduled pub of the night was just round the corner but Ed’s nature sense of direction took us the long way round to Artillery Lane and the destination of The Williams Ale & Cider House which funnily enough is another one of the Metropolitan Pub Company’s stable of pubs. Again it was absolutely full to the gunnels and it took us an absolute beard (which is probably why 80% of the clientele were very hirsute looking) to get served but Ed eventually emerged with something yellow for himself and a mug pint of Sambrook’s Brewery’s Powerhouse Porter, which was probably the drink of the night.

Powerhouse Porter.

The pub was friendly enough and features a “free to play” piano which some young, hip and trendy bloke (with a beard) was bashing away like he had a promise of a blow-job was dependant on it. That’s not to say that the old crumblies like Ed and myself went without music whilst we sipped away outside. We didn’t have a fellatio expectant piano player but we did have some random geezer who stopped in the middle of the street, whipped out an accordion and before you could sing along with “Tequilla!” he was wandering around with an upturned tambourine looking for a few quid.

If you look carefully enough you can hear the accordion.

Taking our cue to leave there was just time to sink a quick one in Dirty Dick’s, a non-Cask Marque Young’s place which promises more than it delivers both in terms of beer and atmosphere. My pint of Young’s Winter Warmer was drinkable enough but not after we’d waited far too long at a not very busy bar which was full of staff who all seemed to be “not qualified to serve drinks mate”.
The night ended with many trips to the toilets which revealed we were drinking in Finch’s Bar and some embarrassing selfies that prove having longer arms to take the photo is much better for the appearance of chins.

Finch's Bar

I wish I had long arms like Ed.........and not as many chins.

Ed left to stumble his was back to London Bridge whilst I jumped on a Circle Line tube and was petrified by the bloke opposite who not only had the vacant stare of a man intent on causing mayhem and murder but the reddest hands I’ve ever seen. I would not be surprised to learn of a spate of stranglings in the next few days!

Murderer's hands.

So only two to go and then we can all go and do something much more interesting……..oh, bollocks, we forgot to look in the direction of Shoreditch.