“When will that be?” say St Dunstan’s, Stepney

Oooooo, it’s getting all so close now! I can smell the finishing line and almost feel the weight of the gold medal being hung around my neck. This is the penultimate tour of the Oranges and Lemons extravaganza and that means we might just get the job finished before we hit the 18 month mark.
So this “next from last” outing took us further into the East End than we’ve ever been so far as the church in question was St Dunstan’s in Stepney and it was asking that all important question of just when we might see the colour of the money owed to us.

Stepney, for those whose London geography mean they get their Whitechapels mixed up with their Blackfriars, is sort of a bit further east than Whitechapel and a bit more north than Limehouse. And it was on a DLR train bound for Limehouse station that the excursion started on a cold wintery Thursday night.

Due to the delights of a bit of an afternoon off, it should have been the whole day but eventually ended up being about 2 hours only, I has spent some of the afternoon puzzling my way around the Tate Modern gallery in Southwark. Now I quite like art and I quite like modern art and I’ve no objections to some of the stranger things we’ve been told are “inspirational” and “awesome” but I’ve got to say quite a lot of the stuff there just past me right by.

Yes JBG, I really could have done that.

Firstly there was nothing in the Turbine Hall apart from some bits of cloth hanging from some bits of wood and the majority of the other compositions seemed to be composted of balls of string and scraps of metal. Half an hour saw me done and I then spent the next 40 minutes wandering around trying to find a pub in a rather comedic hail storm.

With no pub found I eventually made my way to the old offices and blagged my way inside using the excuse that I had a meeting with Spiky Haired Ed. He, along with several others I then learned had just left to make their way to the Minories (which was mentioned when we did Vine Street (yes, I know it’s still the wrong Vine Street) as part of the Monopoly Tour) to await the boarding of the DLR at Tower Gateway.

So that left me kicking my heels in the company of Lucie, Adele, Nicole and mad pissed up Phil as they filed their files and put away their pencil cases after a hard day of messing up everyone’s pay.
Over in the Minories we met up with the majority contingent of Mags, Buddy Rob, James James, Lisa, Gemma and Mo and then even managed to all get on the same DLR and all get off again at Limehouse without losing anyone of the way.

After the lengthiest crossing of the road ever we finally made our way into York Square where you’ve got facing pubs with the Old Ship on the south-west corner and the Queens Head on the north-east one.

The lights are those of the Old Ship, viewed from the Queens Head.

The Old Ship is a gay friendly location which does a big line in drag cabaret (according to the web site) but on this quiet Thursday evening it was disguised as a 1970s timber and horse brass local with a pleasant smattering of likely workmen types in day-glo and hard hats. Unless this was a sort of reverse drag night of course? Anyway we were made very welcome by the bar staff and I selfishly obtained my bottle of Guinness West Indies Porter whilst the rest of them were still fighting about kitties and whips and how cheap it was because we were in before 7.

One half of the tour by the pool table. Look at Ed posing!

The back of the pub opened out in a sizeable games room and people of different generations will remember this sort of room differently. For me it brought back memories of caravanning trips where the only entertainment laid on for the under 18s was a damp port-a-cabin into which was installed a dodgy 20 inch black and white TV which was then grandly called the Television Room. At least in the Old Ship’s version there was a full sized pool table which several of the tourists took immediate advantage of.

The other half of the tour. Ed still posing.

This allowed for a couple of latecomers to slip into proceedings without too much disturbance as we saw New Guy Mickey make his usual “working from home” entrance, Charmer Palmer put in a rare appearance and lovely Brenda turn up again looking extremely fit and well on a diet of leisure and retirement. We were also graced with the presence of Charlie who according to my records hasn’t been on a tour of any kind since Aldgate in May last year.

Brenda and BGC steer the Old Ship into port.

Due to the attraction of the pool table and the offer of cheap before 7 drinks, we were persuaded to stay on for another in the Old Ship before making our way around the square to the previously mentioned Queens Head. The head of the queen in question here was that of the Queen Mother as not only did she appear on the hanging sign outside the pub but also in various photos dotted around the place.

If the Old Ship had pool to offer, then this place had darts, and once Charlie and I had got our orders of Young’s Special sorted (let the others sort themselves out) it was into the back room for a few round of arrows (or in Ed’s case, a few rounds of Pointless) to while away the time.

The Queens Head.

Lisa and James James made their excuses at this point (yeah, don’t tell me there ain’t nothing going on) but the rest of us were eventually rounded up and we made a very brisk way to the church of St Dunstan’s who, as the clocks struck 9, played a special peal of the bells (all cast in the Whitechapel bell foundry no less) in honour of the visit of the BGC.

We stopped, very briefly as it was still bloody parky, just long enough to take on board that the dinging bells had been cast in the previously mentioned Whitechapel foundry (that got a cheer) that the church and the graveyard was home to many sailors and seamen (that got a completely inappropriate giggle) and that it was also the final resting place to one Roger Crab, who may or may not have been the inspiration for the Mad Hatter (that got a round of applause.)

To get the full effect, you need to imagine the sounds of binging and bonging.

It was a very quick dash up White Horse Lane to the junction with Mile End Road and the final pub of the evening. But this dash wasn’t quick enough to avoid the carelessly deposited dildo that was laying the middle of the road. Perhaps this is a common occurrence in Stepney and it’s one I wish I’d had the thought to take a photo of (well it was still very cold) but the poor thing looked quite pathetic and lonely all abandoned like this and I think I may have heard one of the girls offer to give it a good home……or maybe I didn’t.

The final pub of the night was a Wetherspoons by the name of the Half Moon, which apparently was a former theatre and is now home to a whole host of students from the nearby University of London just yards further up Mile End Road. At first I thought it was one of the smallest Wetherspoons I’ve ever been in until we stumbled into the cavernous rear bar which was just as full with students taking advantage of the cheap curry night as the front bar.

Charlie and I had pints of Whale Ale’s Ruby Moby and just generally felt old and knackered as the young and beautiful around us tried to decide how exactly to wear their baseball caps to see if they could get served without being asked for ID.

By half 9 I was well and truly done in and luckily it was only a quick scoot next door to Stepney Green tube station to run back to Reading via Paddington only to find out that it was Rail Replacement Bus night. And just to really fuck my luck that little bit more, the bus driver insisted on playing the Organist Entertains with Nigel Ogden.

Hey ho! One to go!

Kettles and Pans say St Anne’s (and St Agnes)

One of the things that’s becoming obvious as we delve deeper and deeper into the verses of the Oranges and Lemons rhyme is the fact that all the church locations are based around the square mile of the City of London and it’s becoming increasingly more and more difficult to find new pubs to visit and not to make the various evening-outs overlap each other.

This week’s mission had just that sort of problem when the church revealed itself to be that of St Anne’s and St Agnes (poor old St Agnes doesn’t get a mention in the rhyme) which is on Gresham Street, just slightly further on down the road of where we finished the evening out for St Giles without Cripplegate. Although usually you only have to look left and right to fall over the nearest pub in London, this part of the city around Barbican isn’t at all well provided for in terms of pub numbers and it was quite a stretch to gather together some venues for the evening.

The City Tavern before it's demise.

What also didn’t help the mission was that one likely candidate; the City Tavern on Trump Street has now been demolished to make way for another huge office block that probably no-one will ever use. Luckily for the record-keeping of this blog, Google Maps hasn’t quite caught up to modern day events and still has images of the pub if you try to walk around the area using Street View. Perhaps as a Greene King house it might have never had the most interesting of beers on offer but it certainly did a nice line in window boxes.

Anyway on to the pubs that were still standing………

No1 Poultry - Loving the weirdy beardy and the bloke with the afro who have photo-bombed me.

We began the night, in a change to the normal run of events by meeting in the first pub rather than doing our normal herding cats waiting around in the office or waiting for the girls to finish their 2-for-1 cocktails in the Slug & Lettuce. The first pub on this occasion was The Green Man, a Wetherspoon’s basement pub located in the No 1 Poultry Building next to Bank tube station. This was a pub I’d visited before in the company of Aussie Pete (Remember him? Used to eat on his own? Funny accent?) when we were charging around getting the necessary Cask Marque scans needed for one of the Cask Ale Week’s special T-Shirts.

(L-R - James, James-James, James-James-James.)

The first arrivals were yours truly accompanied as usual by several side kicks in the forms of Spikey Haired Ed, James James, New Guy Micky and new converts to the tour Lisa and Reece. We were also joined by a second James, or maybe that should be a third James, who had finally after many promises of joining us made it out onto one of the expeditions. The evening was a damp and drizzly one and the 10 minute walk was made all the more challenging by the dawdling tourists and their dawdling umbrellas. Talking of umbrellas, in order to protect my new hair-do I’d picked up a bright blue stripped monstrosity of a brolly from the office and much to the jealousy of Ed remained bone dry all the way to the pub whereas he seems to take every drop of rain that might damage his perfect bonce as a personal insult..
First beer of the night was Darkest Devon from Exe Valley or at least it was for me, as the others went for continental lagers or vodka fun drinks. The pub is split over two floors and with the upstairs heaving at the gunwales we had to make do with a standing table at the bottom of the stairs As we waiting for everyone else to turn up.

There's a better head on this beer than on the person in the photo - oooo, been waiting to deliver that one for weeks!

We were swiftly joined by Buddy Rob just in time for the second round which in my case was something with “Gold” in the title but due to the reason I couldn’t get a mobile signal in the basement I failed to check into Untappd and therefore don’t have a clear record what it was.

A Comb-Under?

Also in my defence though, I was being put off by the chap stood next to me at the bar as I was placing the order. It’s to the credit of the collective British personality that usually even in the midst of the unruly scrum at the bar we still instinctively know who should be served before who. Now this chap standing to my left wasn’t trying to push ahead in fact his “problem” was the exact opposite in that he was being so meek and mild I was almost embarrassed for him as bar-person after bar-person over looked his proffered empty glass and went on to server someone else. That said it may have been down to one of the weirdest haircuts ever. You’ve all heard of the comb-over, which in my experience is usually centred on the front of the head. Well this chap had a comb-over but it was combed over the back of his head making for this mess of a “do”. Ah well, I hope his pint of “something Gold” went down well which is what I heard him finally order when someone had eventually seen him.

Mid-way through the second round we were joined by tonight’s eye candy in the form of Pissed-Up Phil, Natasha, Gemma and Lucie. Luckily for them it was only vodka fun drinks and halves of cider that needed to be downed before we left for the next place. But mind you, I think Phil still got in two pints in that time…..
The next place was the fabulously named The Old Doctor Butler’s Head, a back alley, wood-timber building currently owned by Shepherd Neame.  Doctor William Butler was the court physician to James I and was described as an eccentric, a drunkard and the greatest physician of his time. So apart from any medical qualifications this was a pub we should feel right at home in.

Unfortunately what we did feel in this pub was extremely crushed as it was absolutely rammed with the usual assortment of besuited city types. Somehow I made it to a place at the bar but that wasn’t enough to see me served before Gemma as obviously the barman had fallen in love with her perfect teeth and dazzling smile. We took the drinks outside where it was still spitting and drizzling and the big blue brolly came into its own as we nearly all managed to get under it and remained the right side of wet.

Wouldn't bother Gemma - hair looks a mess anyway.

No doubt this is a historical and interesting pub but the combination of size of the crowd, the arrogance of the suits and the wetness of the rain led us to scurry off pretty sharpish. But that wasn’t before Gemma had accosted two innocent chaps and accused them of being Italian.
The route now led us along Gresham Street and past the Guildhall and the Red Herring at the bottom of Wood Street which we visited as part of St Giles without Cripplegate, but this time we continued to Noble Street and the church for the evening.

Toilets just around the corner.

St Anne’s and St Agnes is another one of Christopher Wren’s rebuildings after the Great Fire of London. It’s built in the shape of a Greek Cross which apparently is quite rare in terms of church architecture and John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress, was a parishioner here once but as you can probably tell I was struggling for anything else interesting to say about the place. I think the tourists were quite glad of that though as the sound of the rains was making everyone need a toilet.

Note - The barmaid was not a Heavenly Blonde, she was actually a bit of a mardy cow.

Luckily then for everyone’s bladders that the final pub was just around the corner in St Martin’s Le-Grand, a Taylor Walker place called the Lord Raglan. Luckily this place was large enough to cope with the amount of people in there so it was relief from both crowds and rain, and relief for the bladders as well. The beer chosen was the delightfully named Heavenly Blonde from Oldershaw Brewery and perhaps it was so obviously named after Mazars’s very own Gelfling, Natasha, both she and Gemma joined me in a pint of the good stuff. Well I say joined, I had 2 and ½ pints whilst they grimaced and moaned about the ¼ pint they managed to keep down.

(L-R Heavenly Blonde, Heavenly Moustache, Devil Woman)

And then before you could say “time Gentlemen please” the night was over as the majority of the male contingent ran off the rest of the kitty to McDonalds and Phil and I had to console ourselves with a pizza in the company of the Three Degrees. But there was still time for a final beer, a bottle of Greens Gluten Free Pilsner, which was only chosen because it was the only thing I’d never had from the menu before.
So it was back to Liverpool Street for Natasha and Gemma, off jogging somewhere in the night for Lucie in her day-glo trainers and me to save Phil from falling on the tracks at Barbican. So just a normal night
really………….

Two Sticks and an Apple say Whitechapel

If you were attempting to throw together the ingredients of the perfect pub crawl you might search the back corners of your cupboards for such factors as; infamous pubs that were the scene of infamous murders, brew pubs where they brew their own beer in the cellar, crazy indie pubs with easy-going toilet attitudes and the oldest manufacturing business in the UK. Add in a sprinkling of three bare naked lady-bits to the mix and I reckon you might have the perfect combination.

This was the first location on this tour that wasn’t centred around a church because although The Oranges and Lemons rhyme says that “the bells of Whitechapel” are ringing for “two sticks and an apple” it turns out that these bells aren’t located in any place of worship but rather in the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, which is located as one might well expect, on that famous London thoroughfare, Whitechapel Road.

Tour Destination - The Whitechapel Bell Foundry.

BGC fans and followers will remember Whitechapel Road from the much lauded Monopoly Tour which was just about the first time Spikey Haired Ed and the BGC started their blooming and ongoing bromance. On that occasion we visited a few pubs at the Aldgate end of the street so in order to tread some new turf we needed to relocate further along to find some places we hadn’t been to before.

The Blind Beggar.

When I had done my research for Whitechapel Road for the Monopoly tour I noted that it was home to the infamous Blind Beggar pub, the much fabled location of one of the Kray Twins murders. Without going too far into the folklore that surrounds this rather sorry event it is obviously an intriguing pub that we only didn’t visit last time due to the fact it isn’t Cask Marque accredited.
I did some reading into the pub and even forced myself to sit through the Kemp brothers attempts to act menacingly and still couldn’t quite decide what to expect when the time of the visit came around, whether it would be a spit and sawdust drinking den of East End hard men or a twee and rather Disney-fied tourist trap playing on the reputation of its violent past. It was these and other thoughts that crossed my mind as I led the healthy troop of tourists on the short walk from Whitechapel Tube Station to the pub.

There was a good reason the turnout was so healthy on this occasion which we must also explain. Gorgeous George, someone who has brought an element of much needed glamour on the tour, was cashing in her company chips and moving off to pastures new. She very generously asked me if I would mind allowing this week’s tour to also double up as her leaving drinks and of course I was only too happy to oblige. We’d therefore picked up a few new faces for this particular visit as well as all the ugly mugs of the tour faithful.

Watney Combe Reid Brewery Sign on the wall at The Blind Beggar.

So knuckle dusters at the ready we entered the Blind Beggar and met up with New-Guy Mickey who would be a key figure in tonight’s tour. In the end The Blind Beggar turned out to be all those things I’d previously thought about and some more besides. It’s a big open plan place and definitely more on the spit and sawdust side of things than the gleaming horse brass and copper kettle side of things. The only nod to its violent past is a red plaque on the wall marking the spot where George Cornell met his demise and a display of commemorative t-shirts. There were three real ales on offer although my suggested round of pints of Timothy Taylor Golden Best was quashed as the attempt to pull a pint signified the end of the barrel. So it was pints of Courage Best for the beer drinkers and vodka fun drinks or yellow lager for the others. Lucie put her best syndicat d'initiative ears to the test and finding out that the barman was French managed to explain her request to share a bottle of cider with Isabelle. The other drinker of note was Gemma who much to the shock and awe of everyone who knows her was sipping fizzy water due to a slogging drive to Newcastle the next day. Bets were on to see whether that would last!

In this scene, Rob is playing the part of George Cornell.

Check out Brenda's jugs!

We retired to the garden area which was the biggest surprise about the pub. This was a very nice decorative area with lots of pub benches, pot plants and water features and was the perfect spot to crowd around a long table and enjoy our drinks on a rather balmy evening. There was a covered area at the rear of the garden, covered with blackout material with the walls made of bubbling falling water behind glass. The whole effect was very tranquil and calming and you have to wonder whether if Ronnie had had a quick fag out here before entering the pub that fateful night whether history may have been different.

All very civilised. Not a cosh in sight.

The next pub was just across the road and was named The White Hart, a brew pub in what Brenda thought was an old bank building saying it smacked of Nat West decoration. But by the carved etchings on the outside of the pub showing the pub name and an actual hart, whatever it had been previously used for it must have always been called the white hart.

The White Hart.

This place was doing a roaring trade and it was very much a younger hipster-ier crowd that had gathered at the various tables and mismatched chairs dotted around the interior. As previously mentioned this is a brew pub so all the ales on offer were brewed on the premises and were announced on the pump clips by the means of mini-chalk boards. I plumped for the stout which I have to say was superb and was the stand out beer of the evening. Brenda, new tourist John and any other ale drinkers we were still persuading to drink the real stuff went for “Hard Tackle”, a flavoursome IPA.

BGC attempts an arty selfie in the bar mirror.

I could have happily spend another round here but I guess if you’re sipping fizzy H2O (still watching Gemma) then it tastes the same wherever you are so we had to move on. It was a shortish walk down the length of Whitechapel Road walking past lots and lots of old buildings that you could just tell had been pubs at one time or another. With the flourishing immigrant community requiring its needs to be fulfilled many of these seemed to have been turned into fried chicken restaurants. In fact, this interesting website states that around the time of the Ripper murders there were a total of 33 public house establishments along the Whitechapel Road. Once of these was the Blue Anchor which can no-doubt tell many a tale before it was renamed to Indo in the year 2000.

Indo.

Indo is quite possibly the slimmest pub I’ve ever visited and when I researched the area before the tour, I thought this was a take away joint and completely missed the door leading into the skinny interior. Luckily the place wasn’t too full and we managed to crowd around the end of the bar and I got the order in for pints of Scarlet Fever from the Wild Beer Brewery. That I’d made the choice so easily was, as it turned out, a bit of a surprise as the beer range in the pub was substantial to say the list. There were 4 handpumps, 3-4 interesting things on tap (including Hofp Weizen) and a vast list of bottled stuff.

Pumpclips at Indo.

It was here that slim Spikey Haired Ed slipped into the tour after being previously engaged earlier in the evening and it was also here that Natasha slipped to the toilets and rather than waiting for the ladies to become free she popped into the gents with the end result that she ended up chatting with the next chap to visit doing his business whilst still washing her hands. Very friendly place this Indo.

Rob and Stuart by the striking clock-window at Indo.

John guards the list of bottled beers. Isabelle does her best Ronnie Corbett impression.

Scene of Natasha's Chat Show.

It was the across the road and a right at the East London Mosque and down to the non-church for the evening, The Whitechapel Bell Foundry. As previously hinted at, this is the oldest manufacturing business in the country and has been casting bells for the great and good since 1570. On my earlier reconnoitre the rear doors to the workshop were open and I could see the rows of bells being worked on. At ½ 8 in the evening everything was closed unfortunately and so it was in front of the yellow shuttered frontage that I explain that both Big Ben (or the Great Bell) and the Liberty Bell were both cast here and if you have a spare 48 or so thousand pounds lying about you too can be the proud owner of a 4 and a ½ ton C Bell

It was back over to the other side of the road again for what had been planned to be the final venue of the evening. If I said the name of this venue was “The Nag’s Head” you’d probably just think this to be another typical London pub, but if I said that all the windows to this particular Nag’s Head are blacked out and there’s a hefty bouncer on the door you might think this could be a different sort of venue, and you’d be right because I’d brought the tour to a “Gentlemen’s Venue” – Look, it says so on their website.

No point in trying to peer through these windows.

Now before I get accused of being supportive of such seedy places and the tacky trade that they purvey I will say in my defence that this particular venue had been on the “going out” bucket list for ages mainly because it’s run by relatives of New-Guy Mickey and he said he could get us all in for free!

Mickey, bless his cotton socks, was as good as his word and before you could say tight-fitting spandex body stocking we were inside and trying our very politest not to stare too much at the bevy of half-clad ladies that were working that night. Stuart, George’s soon to be ex-boss, had promised to get a round in for her leaving do and so was forced to the bar to complete our order. I had an average pint of Worthington Keg and I’ve no idea what the others were having as I was kept busy fishing pound coins out of the kitty so people could tip the next girl due to dance on the stage.
The “stage” was the size of a large postage stamp and was dominated by a tall silver pole upon which the girls would perform. Now whatever you want to say about strip clubs or this area of the sex industry in general, one thing you cannot criticise is the skill it takes to hang upside down from this said pole, clinging on by only the curved muscles of a sculptured thigh, whilst taking off your bra, doing it all in high heels and managing not to face-plant into the floor. Ladies, I can only respect your erotic athleticism and wish that I had had more available pound coins to have shown my appreciation more.

But it was probably wise to leave after one drink as some of the more delicate members of the tour were showing signs of palpitations and Nicola’s excuse for not tipping the girls in that she was leaving in a minute were wearing thin. Luckily my earlier research had located a final-final pub just a couple of doors down from the Nag’s Head also called, would you believe it, The White Hart, so it was here that the tour stalwarts ended their evening drinking pints of Hogs Back TEA and Shepherd Neame Spitfire whilst all trying to encourage George to book that flight to America and adhere to the rules of #YOLO

Don't look so glum George, have a beer and be as cheery as Brenda!

So George, you can have this tour dedicated to your good self and it goes with all the best wishes and thanks for making the tour that little bit more interesting!

Halfpence and farthings say St Martin Orgar.

Everyone will have experienced that occasion when you’ve planned a night out and in the lead up everyone else seems to be well up for a big exciting party. You’re looking forward to the main event and then when it finally comes along it seems to deflate like a soggy balloon and somehow all the big plans and big ideas don’t quite deliver what they seem to have promised.

And likewise of course, there’s that situation where you’re not particularly expecting a momentous evening and yet somehow it turns out to be one of those cracking nights out where everyone seems to have a whale of a time.

Guess where we're going today?

Quite why I’d thought this particular venture would be a damp squib I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps it was because key people from Payroll were still sunning on southern hemisphere weather and gorging themselves on New Zealand wine and Lord of Rings landscapes and perhaps it was because the IT department put in an appalling showing of personnel with only 3 fighting gladiators stepping forward. In many respects this should have always been viewed as a potential successful night because it was another tour that would take place very close to the office and that didn’t require a tube journey to get us to the first pub.

Could be near here........

The only complication was again around the actual leaving of the office but the wait for the Payroll sluggards, i.e. Brenda and Lucie, was made easier by retirement of the rest of us to the awful Slug & Lettuce beneath the office block for a pint of Freedom Organic Lager from the Freedom brewery.

If you look very carefully you can see the spikey hair of Spikey Haired Ed.

Half an hour later with everyone finally gathered together it was a gentle evening’s stroll in the cool spring sunshine down Upper Thames Street to the first pub, a Nicholson’s emporium called The Walrus and Carpenter. The pub features the Lewis Carroll dining room which just goes to prove that you really can take a theme just that little bit too far.

The Walrus and Carpenter. And Brenda's red coat.

In all reality though it’s actually a very nice pub in a rather identikit Nicholson’s brass and etched glass kind of way. There was a fair old crowd both in and outside the pub but we squeezed in and managed to lay claim to a corner table underneath the wall mounted TV which was playing a European football match that no-one was watching.

Mags steals some Oatmeal Stout and then goes back to wine.

The beer selection was good, much better in fact that the selection of the beer drinkers, as it was only Brenda and me who were partaking of the ales this evening. First on the line for us was the Oatmeal Stout from Broughton Brewery, which although smooth and tasty could have done with a bit more pep in it. The rest of the night’s tourist were making do with a variety of lagers, (Spikey Haired Ed & Phil) vodka fun drinks (Natasha and Kevin) and white wine (Lucie and Mags).

After a little while and a little detour to the wrong pub, love’s young dreams turned up after lining their stomachs at a well known chain of burger joints. If one was counting these things, one might say this is coming a bit of a habit. James joined the lager drinkers and Lisa joined those sipping the white wine.

You can smell the chicken nuggets from here.

Their late arrival meant that our departure from the pub was slightly disjointed but with a set of good directions and promises of meeting up with us in a short while, 6 of use set off for the journey to the underground promise of the Porter’s Lodge.

Yes, I know I said 6, but I'm taking a phone call and Mag's is taking a phone call.

I’d stumbled on this place during a lunchtime break and unless you were looking for the place you’d probably miss the single A-board sign outside and the short flight of stairs down to the bar. The pub does seem to be quite well known on the darts scene though, with 8 professional boards dotted around the room. The obvious advantage of such a lesser known place of course is the amount of people in there, and there were only a couple of handfuls of darts teams on the various boards which meant we could easy get served at the bar.

Brenda and I had pints of Greene Kings London Glory and when this tasted better than the Oatmeal Stout you know how out of condition the former beer must have been. Lucie had another white wine which she described as “rough” and Kevin chose a pint of some standard cider or other (which apparently was also pretty ropey) but the bar was well equipped enough to serve Mags’s Disaronno and cranberry (?) The young guns eventually arrived and made use of the electronic darts game which the bar was generous enough to allow people to play for free.

Finally once Jocky Wilson (Ed) and Eric Bristow (James) had finished it was then time for the night’s educational piece and we made our way up Martin Lane to the blue plaque that denotes where the church once stood. The church of St Martin Orgar was the closest to the Great Fire of London and needless to say was therefore destroyed in the fire. The tower and bell did survive the blaze and for a while was used by French Huguenots as the rest of the parish was transferred to nearby St Clement's. The tower that can be seen today isn’t the original and has never been consecrated and used for religious purposes. Unfortunately the church gardens are also private and closed to the public which meant the best we could do was a gurning photo taken by the plaque.

How come Phil is always in the centre of these group shots?

The next pub was the one in terms of beer that I was most looking forward to. The Pelt Trader is one of the new breeds of “craft” beer pubs and although I object to this pointless term and everything that it denotes in terms of hipster faddishness, if they had an extensive and interesting beer range then what would I have to complain about?

Outside the Pelt Trader.

Well quite a lot as it turns out. Firstly, upon rounding the corner from Canon Street station we could see how full the place was, with crowds of young hipsters spilling onto the pavement outside the pub. I hope to dear God that they were attracted there by the beer and not the architectural merits of the pub which are zero. It’s almost like the owners have simply rented a large storage area from the station itself and then just plonked a horseshoe shaped bar inside. There’s no furniture to speak of and there’s not even really a proper bar as all the beers are served from taps jutting out of the back wall with slices of chalked slate to denote what particular brew is inside.

To be fair the beer range was substantive and very very reasonably priced but the pint of Grain Porter from Grain Brewery was limp to say the least. Again a good bit of conditioning wouldn’t have gone a miss and I wonder had this been served via hand pump would that have given it the life it sadly needed. The lager drinkers had the choice of the well known König Pils which we found out to James’s disgust, does not make a good shandy, or something more exciting like Ed who went for a Köstritzer Dark Lager. Even Kevin pushed the boat out with a real cider from Hogan's which he said was much better than the rough stuff in the Porter’s Lodge.

James enjoying his manly pint of "beer".

We took the drinks outside and tried to join the hip and trendy drinkers but perhaps my hip and trendy days are over as I for one found myself missing a table and chair and perhaps a picture of fox hunting or a busty barmaid. Even Brenda didn’t finish her pint of Adnams and we all agreed that for our purposes anyway this sort of pub isn’t what the doctor ordered.

The final point was now in sight being just the other side of Upper Thames Street down to the banks of the Thames. This was The Banker from Fuller’s and once again we had the lovely advantage of some free vouchers from the Fuller’s website. The pub was busy but not overcrowded and our lovely barmaid, later discovered to be named Daisy, bravely took the wide variety of orders along with the vouchers. Brenda and I had a pint of the sickly sweet Fruli strawberry beer and to be honest the rest of the orders are now forgotten apart from Mags who wanted some boneless chicken (?) – Look, I don’t make this up you know.

We were then introduced to Justina, the bar manager whose name appeared on the bottom of each and every voucher. She jokingly claimed that she’d personally signed every one and sent the emails out herself earlier in the day.

A few of us took our drinks outside and although it was dark and chilly now, the patio heater did a fine job of letting us sit on the banks of the Thames enjoying the fine night. Because of the vouchers the tour whip allowed for the purchase of a second round and I finished the evening with a pint of Fuller’s Spring Sprinter whilst Brenda and another half of the Fruli, again what the others were on by this time of a ever more increasing hazy night was anyone’s guess, but whatever they were drinking it seemed to do the trick as I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many of the tour so worse for drink as on this night.

But in a way that’s the wrong way to describe it because everyone wasn’t worse for drink, they were better for it as the talk became looser and personalities become more open. At least half a dozen time someone said something that had me cracked up in laughter and I must have said “I’ll remember that for the blog” on more than one occasions and yet I’ve gone and forgotten nearly everything……….nearly, Lisa, not quite everything ;-)

So all in all it ended up being a right old cracking evening and the warm welcome from Justina and the rest of the Banker crew made it a fitting end. And I guess that’s the secret of pubs and why they’ll never completely go out of fashion. Places like the Pelt Trader can come and no doubt after making the best of whatever fashion they’re taking advantage of, they’ll go again, but traditional pubs, like the Banker will be around for quite considerably longer.