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Ah, railway station pubs. As Brits battle the country’s often-dire rail network, pubs in (or near) stations are often our saving grace, the thing that keeps us sane amid countless delays, cancellations and strikes.
London’s major rail hubs pretty much all boast in-station pubs, and plenty of them are delightful places to sink a pint. And we’re not the only ones who think so: the Telegraph recently published its list of the top 10 railway pubs in the UK, and you can find two of them here in the capital.
Travel journalist Will Hawkes wrote: ‘Station pubs, which used to be reliably grim (to put it mildly), have improved by leaps and bounds, and many are now destinations in their own right.’
‘Any and all of these pubs will keep you happily engaged until it’s time to get on board.’
So, which London railway pubs have been crowned the UK’s best to squeeze in a pre-train pint? The two that feature are The Parcel Yard and Pelt Trader – here’s why they’re apparently so good.
The Parcel Yard, King’s Cross
King’s Cross’s The Parcel Yard is a Fullers pub that sits next-door to Harry Potter attraction Platform 9¾. Spread over two floors and occupying the station’s former parcels office, The Parcel Yard is, according to Hawkes, ‘London’s most charismatic station pub’. He goes on to praise the boozer’s ‘wide variety of spaces in which to drink, all of them delightfully light, airy and calm’. The Parcel Yard came fifth in the Telegraph’s overall list.
Pelt Trader, Cannon Street
In a railway arch under a Cannon Street station, Pelt Trader is an independent pub with more than a dozen taps offering a wide range of ales, beers and ciders. Coming ninth in the Telegraph’s list, Hawkes commends Pelt Trader’s ‘tremendous variety of high-class beer from the best breweries in the UK and, to an extent, the continent too’, and says that ‘the pub’s cave-like ambience is a godsend on a hot summer’s day’.
You can read the Telegraph’s full list of the best railway station pubs in the UK here.
The 50 best pubs in London, according to Time Out.
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