Favoured at various times by both Charles Dickens and DH Lawrence, this splendid pub is packed tight on summer evenings, the front terrace and wide main bar area filled with professional blokes chugging Adnams Broadside while their female equivalents put bottles of sancerre on expenses. Solicitors can – indeed, do – celebrate a successful case with a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
But despite the stereotypes, the Anglesea has always had more aura than the average South Kensington hostelry. Perhaps it’s the erotic painting of Fifi, the ghost that roams its cellar; perhaps it’s the link with the Great Train Robbery, allegedly planned here. On quieter winter lunchtimes, it’s the ideal place for a quality foreign lager (Kirin, Bitburger) and a heart-to-heart over a plate of squid linguine at one of the bottle-green banquettes overlooked by random portraits.