Look around this traditional boozer, displaying heraldic shields, royals through the ages in playing-card form, and pictures of the England touring cricket team to Australia in 1978-79, and you’d be hard pushed to guess that this was where Bob Dylan made one of his first London appearances.
It still has a monthly folk night but most come to this dark, expansive saloon for the range of beers, which includes St Austell Tribute, Sharp’s Doom Bar, Adnam’s and San Miguel. Whiskies – Macallan 10, Laphroaig and Glenmorangie all by the optic – are another speciality. Sport broadcasts from a TV on the back wall – it’s not a bad place to watch the Saturday results unfold in peace and quiet.
Food includes scampi and chips, and steak-and-kidney pudding, and sales are rung up on an old copper cash register.