George Devo’s weekly column on life in the capital, published every Monday morning…
Dark wooden seats and tables sit on an aged carpeted floor. The room is lined with leather-backed sofas, fitted tightly against the walls, and the large 19th century windows – an elegant mix of stained, frosted and clear glass – fill the space with light. The bar is packed with brass beer pumps, shining as the sun’s rays bounce onto them off the room’s extensive, ornate tiling. Adjacent to the bar is a stand holding today’s newspapers; a dad picks one out to entertain himself whilst he keeps half an eye on his sons playing darts across the room. There are three log-burning fireplaces in this building, one in the large lounge area, another in the grand bar and a final, third in the quiet snug. The locals are a welcoming mix of families with young kids, middle aged couples, older regulars in their 70s and 80s, and the occasional group of late-teens/early 20s lads stopping here before the football.
This is ‘The Seven Stars’ of Stourbridge, my favourite pub back home. A prime example of the needlessly intricate architecture of the Victorians, where drinking establishments were built as temples for the working man and not the just flat-roofed, serviceable, bare minimum boozers which currently populate Britain’s mid-20th-century council estates.
It’s perfect in every conceivable way – except for the fact it fills with West Brom fans at early-afternoon every matchday – and I’m lucky to be from a region of our country which is packed with pubs just like it.
It’s fair to say I’ve missed places like this in London. As if the £6 pint didn’t already knock you back, being surrounded by unreasonably chirpy yuppies who seem to actually enjoy the Six Nations, rather than tolerate it, and order Guinness by social-media-decree, can get a little wearing after a couple of pints. By the way, if you’re not a curmudgeonly geriatric trapped in a student’s body and don’t know what ‘yuppies’ are, then please look it up.
That’s not to say those laid back venues for ordinary locals don’t exist in London but, in my experience, they tend to be a tad shabbier and the beer a lot poorer than those I grew up with. And, even when the building is beautiful and the decor just as conscientiously maintained, relentless gentrification usually means the aforementioned yuppies are present too, alongside the long-suffering locals forced to stick ‘the rugger’ on the TV to draw a crowd.
Except, last Sunday, I found a pub that did remind me of home. In the most unlikely of places – a 5 minute walk from the Tower of London.
As an actual resident of London you tend to avoid the tourist traps so, when my mum and brother visited from the Midlands and I found myself crossing Tower Bridge to meet them, swimming against a tide of American golf dads, German coach trippers and Italian school kids, I was a little thrown off.
On the south side of the river, my family, girlfriend and I went for a meal, sat down and caught up and, when the food was eaten and the bill was paid, realised we needed to fill the few hours left before my relatives’ train left Euston station.
As is custom in my family the first thought was ‘where’s the nearest pub?’. Nobody knew.
My assumption was that everywhere nearby would be either glossy, bland, slightly soulless chain pubs (think Greene King) or a modern bar masquerading as a pub (think Brewdog).
So, when Google Maps suggested we visit the Anchor Tap, I feared the worst.
What I found was a throwback. Although ‘throw’ doesn’t really cut it – it catapulted us back fifty, sixty, a hundred years, to the time when this section of London, just south of the river was industrial dockland rather than the collection of posh flats, pricey restaurants and tacky gift shops that it is today.
A dartboard and a pool table. Tick. A landlord who runs the boozer with his wife, and not a staff of, likely underpaid and reluctant, teens. Tick. An interior and atmosphere single handedly keeping the spirit of London’s industrial past alive. Tick, tick, tick.
It did what a pub should do in that sort of area, offer respite from the crowds. A place you can sit, drink and talk away from the throngs of Europeans fresh from gawping at the Crown Jewels.
Because pubs exist, fundamentally, to drag us back to what matters in life. Ripping you away from the hectic rush of modern life and sitting you down, handing you a pint and making you chat to a friend or family member. All distractions vanish. It’s just you, people you like and your voices knocking back and forth.
This pub did just that. An oasis amidst the bustle. I’d say you should go, but, reader… you might ruin it for me.
Now, for the first time in this column, I’m going to end by suggesting some light reading…
The Anchor Tap is a pub under the Samuel Smith brewery. The owner of that brewery is a rather – how do I put this so he won’t sue me? – difficult man.
The Guardian’s recent long-read on the subject does a great job of summing up his eccentricities and what is wrong with the way he manages his more than 200 pubs. If you’ve got 10 minutes to spare, please have a look here.
