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………….
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