FREEDOM PASS WETHERSPOONS PART 1
FREEDOM PASS WETHERSPOONS PART 1
A Freedom Pass allows free travel for seniors across the whole TFL (Transport For London) network from 9am weekdays and all day on Saturday and Sundays.
When I thought of doing this, I didn't realise there were around a hundred J D Wetherspoons pubs in Greater London. But, over the years, I've already been to more than thirty of them, so we'll see how it goes - and there's no time restriction.
Almost all the 'Spoons' pubs serve reasonably-priced food and drinks from 8am until midnight.
I've only commented at length on those that are particularly pleasant, historically relevant, or are near to places of interest.
The name of the business originates from JD, a character in The Dukes of Hazzard and Wetherspoon, the surname of founder Tim Martin's teacher in New Zealand, who told him he would never amount to much. Sir Tim now owns over 800 pubs (Dec 2023).
George Orwell had his own thoughts on the perfect pub - epitomised by his fictional creation: The Moon Under Water. This name has been adopted by thirteen Wetherspoons, including six in London.
Every Wetherspoons establishment in Great Britain was visited by Mags Thomson from 1994 to October 2015. She reached a total of 972, which included 80 that have subsequently closed. She even had to buy airline tickets to visit those that are airside. I'm not being that ambitious - although my Freedom pass also works on local bus services for the whole of England.
The name of the business originates from JD, a character in The Dukes of Hazzard and Wetherspoon, the surname of founder Tim Martin's teacher in New Zealand, who told him he would never amount to much. Sir Tim now owns over 800 pubs (Dec 2023).
George Orwell had his own thoughts on the perfect pub - epitomised by his fictional creation: The Moon Under Water. This name has been adopted by thirteen Wetherspoons, including six in London.
Every Wetherspoons establishment in Great Britain was visited by Mags Thomson from 1994 to October 2015. She reached a total of 972, which included 80 that have subsequently closed. She even had to buy airline tickets to visit those that are airside. I'm not being that ambitious - although my Freedom pass also works on local bus services for the whole of England.
We start with my local, where I often sit with a bacon sarnie, bottomless coffee and The Telegraph crossword, waiting for the clock to tick over to 9am, the time when pensioners flood onto public transport brandishing their Freedom Passes .....
Wanstead - The George
The George maintains the name of this fine Edwardian building, completed in 1903. It replaced an earlier George and Dragon Inn which had stood on an adjacent site. Wanstead Underground Station is directly opposite.
Apart from historic prints of Wanstead, the walls are adorned with a gallery of famous Georges - including our old friend Mr Orwell (above, right). His real name was Eric Arthur Blair. The George can get quite busy - especially if West Ham are at home.
A plaque on the wall commemorates how, in 1752, a worker on a ladder stole a pie from a vendor who walked underneath with a tray of cherry pies on his head. The worker was fined half a guinea for the theft. I'm guessing it didn't make the national news. The plaque is much older than the building and no-one seems to know how it got there. Efforts to make July 17 Cherry Pey Day in Wanstead have nurtured little response.
Winston Churchill was the local MP here for four decades until 1964, a year before his death. His bust is in front of The Bull, 50 metres along the High Street. It is mounted on a stone which was part of the original Waterloo Bridge, demolished in the 1930s. Other stonework from the bridge is spread worldwide, sold or as gifts.
The Bull is on the site of the Manor House which was the home of Admiral William Penn, father to the founder of Pennsylvania, also called William, who spent his childhood there. The Admiral died in Wanstead in 1670 by which time his son had moved to Rickmansworth where another watering hole honours him .....
The Pennsylvanian - Rickmansworth
Penn, a Quaker, became the first city planner in the New World when he established Philadelphia - pictured above in the gent's toilet of The Pennsylvanian. You can just make out the 11.3 metre statue of William Penn which sits atop Philadelphia City Hall. It is claimed to be the world's tallest statue on top of a public building. Read more about William Penn here.
In 1681, King Charles II granted an enormous tract of land (120,000 sq km) in America to William Penn in payment of a debt of £16,000 owed to Penn's late father Admiral Penn. The son sailed to America to found Pennsylvania, becoming the world's largest private non-royal landowner at the time.
For five years, Penn lived in Rickmansworth in Basing House, now the Three Rivers Museum of Local History, where there is a commemorative tablet. The stone above was brought from Penn's house on the banks of the Delaware in Pennsylvania.
The Kings Ford - Chingford Mount
The name ‘Chingford’ is said to derive from the Old English word ‘ching’, meaning ‘king’, and the ford over the River Lea, thought to be associated with Alfred the Great, hence the name of this pub.
The Kray twins are buried at Chingford Mount Cemetery alongside other members of their crime family.
We don't know where the Krays buried the bodies; but we do know where their bodies are buried. Also in this plot are older brother Charlie, parents Violet and Charles, and Reggie's wife Frances.
Apparently Reggie was ....
.... really?
.... really? There have been numerous books and documentaries about Ronnie and Reggie plus several movies including The Krays (1990) where they were played by brothers Gary and Martin Kemp of Spandau Ballet. Legend (2015) starred Tom Hardy in both roles.
Unfortunately, the Kings Ford kitchen isn't open so, after a leisurely coffee and pleasant cemetery walk, I head off for brunch in Palmer's Green. Thank goodness I brought the car, otherwise it would be three more buses.
The Alfred Herring - Palmers Green
It's a pleasant and spacious pub. I accidently order a Quorn sausage sarnie which is surprisingly tasty; well, it is Veganuary. Also, the bowl of fruit to go with my porridge, honey and newspapers is very generous. Having eaten so healthily I feel pretty pleased with myself ..... at least until wading into a meat treat pizza watching the footie later in the day.
Major Alfred Cecil Herring was living in Palmers Green when called up in 1916. He won the Victoria Cross in WWI before being taken prisoner. In a letter of the 24 May 1918, he recalled “the day after I was captured I spoke to the Kaiser. He was jolly nice and very complimentary. I also saw General Hindenburg”. Herring's Wikipedia entry is here.
Palmers Green is home to the largest number of Greek Cypriots outside Cyprus and is nicknamed Little Cyprus or Palmers Greek.
Should I ever decide to put my house on the market I think I’ll suggest the estate agents replace ‘convenient for places of worship’ with ‘within easy walking distance of two Wetherspoons’. This is the second one. Alfred Hitchcock was born just round the corner. He’s Leytonstone’s favourite son rather than David Beckham - maybe because Hitch never played for Man U. So there are many local references ....
.... but the mosaics that adorn Leytonstone Underground Station are something else. It’s a pretty bleak place anyhow, so imagine walking up that dark corridor late at night ...
..... The Skin Game, The Birds, Psycho, North By NorthWest, Vertigo.
The Back of Beyond and The Hope Tap - Reading
The Back of Beyond has outdoor tables by the River Kennet. It is aptly named as Reading, the western end of the Elizabeth Line, is the farthest I can travel on my Freedom Pass - 60 miles from Wanstead. The Hope Tap is in the town centre.
Reading's Maiwand Lion in Forbury Gardens commemorates the loss of almost 300 soldiers from the Royal Berkshire Regiment in the 1880 Battle of Maiwand in Afghanistan. Arthur Conan Doyle based Doctor Watson on the regiment's medical officer, Major A F Preston, who was injured in the battle. The lion is one of the world's largest cast iron statues. It features on Reading FC's club badge. They are nicknamed The Royals.
Reading Gaol, which closed in 2014, was where Oscar Wilde was famously imprisoned for two years in 1895 for 'having a relationship with a man'. Whilst there Wilde wrote his letter De Profundis. The execution of Charles Wooldridge during the time Wilde was incarcerated prompted him to later write The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
On the night of February 28, 2021 Banksy painted a mural on the prison wall. It is still there three years later. The typewriter on the end of the knotted bed-sheets is thought to be a reference to Wilde.
The Bear - Maidenhead
Rather oddly, Wetherspoons Maidenhead Inn is actually in Basingstoke.
At Maidenhead Railway Station there is a statue of Sir Nicholas Winton who lived locally. It was unveiled in 2010 by MP for Maidenhead Theresa May,
Outside the NatWest Bank in Maidenhead High Street is a plaque commemorating the place where Charles I saw his children for the last time before his execution in 1647.
The Moon and Spoon - Slough
Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
It isn't fit for humans now
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, death!
- John Betjeman, 1937
In 2006, on the centenary of Betjeman's birth, his daughter said her father "regretted having ever written it". But by then the town's reputation as a depressing industrial wasteland had been further damaged by The Office, set in Slough by Reading-born Ricky Gervais. The American version of The Office is located on Slough Avenue, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Scranton is the birthplace of Joe Biden.
And they don't do themselves any favours ....
...... OK Slough, it might be a redevelopment of the old Horlicks factory, but retaining the name is hardly a selling point.
The expression comes from the fact (as some of us will remember) that if you don't closely follow the instructions on the jar you'll end up with a very lumpy malted fruit drink.
Horlicks was conceived in Chicago by English brothers James and William Horlick as a baby food. It never took off in the US but became popular in Britain as a sleep aid.
Having been born in Scunthorpe, which has its own quota of unfair ridicule, I have some sympathy for the good people of Slough. Having said that, I couldn't find anything of interest there - apart from the weird sculpture made entirely of spoons in The Moon and Spoon.
The Botwell Arms - Hayes (Hillingdon)
For a Wetherspoons, The Botwell Arms has quite an unusual art deco feel. But there are still some areas where there is the traditional carpeting. Every Spoons has a unique Axminster carpet, partially handmade on old fashioned looms. They have even been the subject of two books.
This pub, once a furniture shop, derives is name from the hamlet of Botwell which once stood in what is now Hayes town centre.
The Hawthorns High School in Hayes, where Orwell once taught, is now the Rosemay Hotel .....
Eric Blair is on the right of this old school photo on display in The Botwell Inn .....
Orwell said of Hayes: "one of the most godforsaken places I have ever struck".
The Moon Under Water - Leicester Square
In the heart of London's West End, this will be familiar to many of my readers as a handy meeting point for breakfast and coffee, as well as a beer. Like most Spoons, they open at 8am.
It takes its name from the 1946 essay by George Orwell which described his ideal pub as the fictional "Moon Under Water". Orwell admitted he did know of a few pubs that almost came up to his ideal and his essay finishes: "And if anyone knows of a pub that has draught stout, open fires, cheap meals, a garden, motherly barmaids and no radio, I should be glad to hear of it, even though its name were something as prosaic as the Red Lion or the Railway Arms.
For more on Leicester Square and Chinatown click here.
The Eva Hart - Chadwell Heath
Really nice pub on two levels named after one of the last Titanic survivors. Eva Hart, aged seven, was rescued together with her mother. Her father went down with the ship.
Hart died in 1996, aged 91, one of the last survivors of the tragedy. For many years she insisted the Titanic had broken in half. This was widely disputed until the wreck was discovered in 1985. More about Eva on Wikipedia.
The pub was once the town’s police station, built in 1850 on the site of the old stocks. It was replaced in 1892 by the current building.
December, 2024: Since the demise of The George in Wanstead, I now sometimes drive to the Eva Hart for my regular fix of Sunday breakfast/papers. It's also not a bad place to meet up with friends, being very close to Chadwell Heath station on the Elizabeth Line.
The Dairyman - Brentwood
A high street pub which is a bit of an uphill hike from Brentwood station. This is the farthest east I will go - 77 miles from the most westerly point - The Back of Beyond in Reading.
Davey's Dairy, demolished in the 1960s, once stood on this site. At the rear of the building was a milk bottling plant and stables for the horses that pulled the milk floats.
The Moon and Stars - Romford
Busy high street pub with a roof terrace - which was not open (it was January).
Colley Rowe Inn - Collier Row
Pleasant, spacious pub in a quiet Romford suburb. Bottomless coffee only 99p! It gets its name from 'colier', meaning charcoal burner in Middle English. The last recorded colier in the area was around 1570. No-one seems to know the significance of the inn sign.
The London and South Western & The Asparagus - Battersea
The two Battersea Spoons are at opposite ends of Falcon Road with the London and South Western close to Clapham Junction Station.
It is in a building which was completed in 1935 as Hastings Furniture's flagship store.
Clapham Junction, with its seventeen platforms, is the busiest station in Europe with around 180 trains per hour passing through at peak times, mostly from Victoria and Waterloo. The first station opened here in 1863 after London and South West Rail joined forces with rival companies to build Falcon Bridge - later renamed Clapham Junction despite being in Battersea, not Clapham.
The Asparagus derives its name from the crop produced around here in the 19th century when Battersea was full of market gardens. The asparagus were sold in what were popularly known as Battersea Bundles.
From The Asparagus you can take a very pleasant walk through Battersea Park to Battersea Power Station, now a huge shopping mall (just head towards the famous chimneys). I have already written about this - see Electric Company x 2.
Battersea Park has a
boating lake, café and the impressive Peace Pagoda. The two figures on the
steps (in 2012) happen to be celebrated astrophysicist Brian Cox and
his wife. You have to take my word for this. Professor Cox was also the keyboard player in
D:Ream. But he didn’t feature on their number one hit Things Can Only Get
Better. He only got a D in A level maths. I got a B; just saying.
The Sir John Hawkshaw - Cannon Street Station
Smallish pub inside the station that was designed by Hawkshaw. A pensive life-size cut-out of Sir John sits in the front window. Closed at the weekend.
The Barrel Vault - St Pancras International
The Barrel Vault is not obviously a Wetherspoons. It wouldn't be a pub I'd recommend for social gatherings, but it functions well as a place handy for Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, etc. It opens from 6.30am if you have an early train. And where else around here can you get coffee with free re-fills for £1.56?
St Pancras Station, with its stunning single-span iron-and-glass-roof, opened in1868. The platforms were on a raised deck, leaving a huge vault underneath where thousands of barrels of Burton Beer were stored. For more on St Pancras/Kings Cross click here.
The Captain Flinders - Euston
The Captain Flinders is a new pub which opened in January 2024. Flinders led the first circumnavigation of Australia (1801–03) and, although he didn't invent the term, is credited with popularising the country's name.
Archaeologists working on HS2, which will terminate at Euston Station, discovered the remains of Flinders in January 2019.
The statue, in front of the station, is of Captain Flinders with his pet cat Trim, named after the butler in Laurence Sterne's book Tristram Shandy. Nearby, and well worth a visit, is the quirky Wellcome collection - see Euston Road.
The Sir John Oldcastle - Farringdon
This busy city pub is named after The Sir John OIdcastle Tavern which stood nearby in the 16th century.
Oldcastle was an English Lollard leader who, for some time, escaped persecution for heresy because he was a friend of Henry V. But he was eventually executed in 1417 after leading a failed revolt to depose the monarchy. Sir John was the inspiration for Shakespeare's John Falstaff, a comic obese drunkard in Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 and The Merry Wives of Windsor. His death is also mentioned in Henry V.
WETHERSPOONS VISITED PRIOR TO 2024:
Baxter's Court - Hackney - Opposite the wonderful old Hackney Empire, which is still going strong. It opened in 1901 and was the first all-electric theatre. The pub is named after an old alleyway which was once here.
The Crosse Keys - City of London
The marble-pillared pub is the former Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. It is very close to the site of the original inn which burnt down in the Great Fire, and then again in 1734.
The name derives from the Keys of Heaven, held by St Peter.
The Crosse Keys is a good place to assemble before visiting one of the three (soon to be four) free high-rise viewing platforms around here - see Fenchurch Street Station.
It is a vast space but still gets very busy with city workers at lunchtime. NB there are some extra tables behind the gallery at the far end which not everyone knows about. Note that at the weekends it opens later than the usual 8am - 0830 on Saturdays and 0930 Sundays, the days when a Freedom Pass works before 9am.
The Gate Clock - Greenwich
Town centre pub, handy for the Cutty Sark - and watching the London Marathon.
The Half Moon - Mile End
Stepney Green, not Mile End, is the nearest tube station. Also, quite close by is the famous Blind Beggar pub where Ronnie Kray shot and murdered George Cornell. See Whitechapel Road for more about this area. It's also not far from The Museum of Childhood and Vagina Museum, both in Bethnal Green.
Hamilton Hall - Liverpool Street Station
This showpiece Spoons, which was once the ballroom of the Great Eastern Hotel, could be well-described as opulent. The Victorian building is on the site of England's first hospital for the mentally ill, the Bethlehem Royal Hospital. It opened in 1247 and became known as "Bedlam". The Great Eastern features in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Open from 7am (9am Sundays).
The Ledger Building - Docklands for Canary Wharf and the Docklands Museum. Grade 1 listed building that was originally used to store the ledgers of the West India Docks. Very spacious with several side rooms, which is nice. And check out the toilets!
There are archive photos aplenty about the docks on the walls; click here to view.
The Liberty Bounds - Tower of London popular with tourists (there are Look after your bag and phone notices in nine languages - and hooks under the tables).
The ancient jurisdiction or “Liberty” was the Crown boundaries between the fortifying ditch to the east and west and the high ground to the north called Tower Hill.
The Liberty Bounds is opposite the site of the scaffold where over 125 prisoners from the Tower were executed in the 16th and 17th centuries. All the tour guides pause here.
The Montagu Pyke - Soho: Montagu Pyke owned movie theatres in the early 1900s, the last one being on this site. It was also the final home of the legendary Marquee Club. It is next door to Foyle's legendary bookshop which has a nice cafe on the 5th floor and opposite the Art of Banksy exhibition. Opens 8am apart from Sunday (10am).
See Soho for more on this and other notable pubs in the area.
Penderel's Oak - Holborn Amidst the Inns of Court with shelves of law books. Scheduled for closure.
The Pommelers Rest - Tower Bridge (south approach) Good starting point for South Bank walk towards Westminster - around 3 miles away. See Go To Jail.
The Shakespeare's Head - Holborn
The Shakespeare's Head takes its name from an earlier pub in nearby Wych Street which was frequented by writers including Charles Dickens.
Mark Lemon, onetime landlord of the original pub, was the first editor of Punch Magazine which was published from 1841. The walls are (inevitably) festooned with scenes from Shakespeare's plays. There's also a copy, above, of the famous Chandos Portrait of the Bard (see National Portrait Gallery).
This is the nearest Spoons to the British Museum and also a useful place for a pub lunch with your mates around one of the large circular tables. I recall eight of us once doing just that and being surrounded by around 30 retired Wormwood Scrubs prison officers. Eventually their former governor joined us on the round table as "no-one else was talking to him". The collective noun for prison officers is 'committee'; thought it might be 'cell'.
The Shakespeare's Head is on the ground floor of the resplendent Africa House, built in the early 1920s as headquarters of the African and Eastern Trade Corporation. The building's neoclassical style has a fluted Doric screen with a triumphal arch entrance surmounted by lions couchant. A feature of the upper floors is an entablature with deep mutule cornice below a pediment of carved figures and wild animals (I can google!)
The Stargazer - O2 Arena, Greenwich
An astronomical theme reflects the fact that, like the Greenwich Observatory, The Stargazer sits pretty much on the Meridian Line.
I lunched in The Stargazer the day after it opened in April 2023. There were plenty of other grey-hairs there already. Us pensioners may not be as sharp as we used to be .... but quick off the mark when cheap beer is in the offing!
There are around 200 tables with a large outdoor space. But I'll imagine it will still be rammed on event nights. The menu isn't as extensive as other Spoons (no steaks!); and it doesn't open until 10am. Prices are far from astronomical.
Top trivia: The O2 (formerly Millennium Dome) has a diameter of 365 metres, the number of days in a year; 12 support columns, the number of months in a year; and a height of 52 metres, the number of weeks in a year. A circular indoor lap is around one kilometre. (365Ï€ = 1,146.68131856035km approx)
You can get there by bus, tube (Jubilee Line), river bus or cable car (recommended).
The cable car is also the cool way to visit the ExCel Exhibition Centre on the opposite bank of the Thames. A Freedom Pass isn't valid for the cable car but Oyster Card is, £6 each way.
......
me, from a helicopter, yeah!
me, from a helicopter, yeah!Wetherspoons - Victoria Station
It's not very big. But then, unless you're catching a train, there's little incentive to go there. Good view of the departure boards. Opens at 6am (8am on Sunday). Update, March 2024 - it's been refurbished and now double the original size.
The White Swan - Islington Spacious pub on the site of the Old White Swan which was demolished in 1962. Before then there was a row of shops which, in 1944, were destroyed by a V-2 flying bomb, killing 26 and injuring 155 people.
The Central Bar - Shepherd's Bush for Westfield London Shopping Centre.
Goldenglove - Stratford for Westfield Stratford and the Olympic Park. The pub takes its name from Spring and Fall by Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, born in Stratford in 1844.
The Great Spoon of Ilford - Ilford Close to the Exchange shopping mall and Valentine's Park.
The name of this pub refers to a measure of ale known as a spoon (about two pints). Inside is this statue of Elizabethan actor Will Kemp who, when dancing his way to London from Norwich, stopped for a spoon in Ilford.
At £1.04 The Great Spoon of Ilford has the cheapest Wetherspoons bottomless coffee I've found. At the time of writing the standard price is normally £1.56.
The Moon on the Hill - Harrow-on-the-Hill Scheduled for closure, this small pub is the least appealing Wetherspoons I've visited so far. It's not actually on Harrow-on-the-Hill but neither is nearby Harrow-on-the-Hill station. If you want to visit Harrow's famous public school (or have a beer in The Castle, which isn't a Spoons) you need to walk up the hill, or take the 258 bus.
The New Fairlop Oak - Barkingside - A former post office, The New Fairlop Oak stands on the edge of Barkingside near Fairlop Water. It is named after a famous 500-year-old oak tree which is said to have had a trunk 66 feet in circumference. The tree caught fire in 1805 and was blown down in 1840.
On the roundabout in front of the pub is another Fairlop Oak. It was planted in 1951 in remembrance of its illustrious predecessor and is listed as one of the 61 Great Trees of London despite being considerably younger than most of the others.
The spacious New Fairlop Oak, which also has a garden, has the usual framed photos - some of oak trees - and also local celebs including sixties songstress Kathy Kirby who lived in Barkingside and Dr Thomas Barnardo. He opened his first children's home for girls in Barkingside and his ashes were scattered here in the picturesque Barnardo's Village Green. The spot is marked by a memorial designed by Sir Peter Frampton, best known for his statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. Barnardo's headquarters are still in Barkingside.
The Sir Michael Balcon - Ealing not very big and just off the bustling Ealing Broadway shopping area; so one would imagine it can get busy. Sir Michael was a film producer known for his leadership of Ealing Studios from 1938 to 1955. He produced the popular Ealing Comedies that included The Ladykillers, The Lavender Hill Mob and Passport to Pimlico.
SADLY CLOSED:
The Knight's Templar in Chancery Lane closed on March 18, 2023. This messes up my carefully crafted Fleet Street pub crawl as it was the only boozer in the area open before noon, enabling serious drinkers to line their stomachs with a full English breakfast. It was also licensed for marriage ceremonies. The pub briefly appeared in The Da Vinci Code movie.
The building is the former Union Bank (est.1839) and the pub took its name from the order of Warrior Knights across whose land Chancery Lane was built in the 12th century. It is now a gastropub called The Last Judgement which has good reviews - but doesn't open until noon.
Angel - Islington is still a pub, The Junction, but no longer a Spoons.
The Angel, Islington, was originally a coaching inn. In 1933, it was a Lyons restaurant - and the place where the London Monopoly board was conceived. Now, it’s a Co-operative Bank with a plaque inside commemorating the Monopoly connection. Wetherspoons named their pub next door The Angel which was partly on the site of the original inn. It was quite small and sandwiched between the bank and the white tower which was once the Angel cinema (1911-1972), now Starbucks.
The Lord Moon of the Mall - Trafalgar Square
This was a useful place to meet for breakfast (from 8am) before doing the tourist stuff. It is now The Horse and Guardsman and opens at 10am, which is earlier than most pubs in central London (apart from Spoons). I must check it out sometime.
STILL TO DO ...
The Beehive - Brixton SW9 7DG
The Brockley Barge - Brockley SE4 2RR
The Fox on the Hill - Camberwell SE5 8EH
The Goodman's Field - Tower Hamlets E1 8AN
The Great Harry - Woolwich SE18 6PQ
The Holland Tringham - Steatham SW16 1HJ
The Ice Wharf - Camden NW1 7BY
J.J. Moons - Tooting SW17 0RN
The Kentish Drovers - Peckham SE15 5RS
The London & Rye - Catford SE6 4AF
The Masque Haunt - Old Street EC1V 9BP
The Metropolitan Bar - Marylebone NW1 5LD
The Plough and Harrow - Hammersmith W6 0QU
The Rochester Castle - Stoke Newington N16 0NY
The Rocket - Putney SW15 2JQ
The Rockingham Arms - Elephant and Castle SE1 6BN
The Surrey Docks - Rotherhithe SE16 2LW
The Watch House - Lewisham SE13 6JP
The William Morris - Hammersmith W6 0QA
The Willow Walk - Victoria SW1V 1LW
The Barking Dog - Barking IG11 8TU
The Beaten Docket - Cricklewood NW2 3ET
The Coronation Hall - Surbiton KT6 4LQ
The Furze Wren - Bexleyheath DA6 7DY
The George - Croydon CR0 1LA
The Good Yarn - Uxbridge UB8 1JX
The Greenwood Hotel - Northolt UB5 4LA
The Greyhound - Bromley BR1 INY
J.J. Moon's - Kingsbury NW9 9EL
J.J. Moon's - Wembley HA9 6AA
J.J. Moon's - Hornchurch RM12 4UN handy for Queen's Theatre
J.J. Moon's - Ruislip Manor HA4 0AA
Kingston - The King's Tun - KT1 1QT
The Moon & Stars - Penge SE20 7QS
The Moon Under Water - Colindale NW9 6RR
The Moon Under Water - Norbury SW16 4AU
The Moon Under Water - Enfield EN2 6NN
The Moon Under Water - Hounslow TW3 3LF
The Moon Under Water - Watford WD17 2BS
The Moon and Sixpence - Hatch End HA5 4HS
The Moon on the Hill - Sutton SM1 1DZ
The Moon on the Square - Feltham TW13 4AU
The Mossy Well - Muswell Hill N10 3SH
The New Cross Turnpike - Welling DA16 3PB
The New Crown - Southgate N14 5PH
The Nonsuch Inn - North Cheam SM3 9AA
The Railway Bell - Barnet EN4 8RR
The Red Lion & Pineapple - Acton W3 9PB
The Richmal Crompton - Bromley BR1 1DS
The Sir Julian Huxley - Selsdon CR2 8LB
The Sovereign of the Seas - Petts Wood BR5 1DG
Spouter's Corner - Wood Green N22 6EJ
The Tailor's Chalk - Sidcup DA14 6ED
The Tichenham Inn - Ickenham UB10 8DF
The Village Inn - Rayners Lane HA5 5DY
The Whispering Moon - Wallington SM6 8QF
The Wibbas Down Inn - Wimbledon SW19 1QT
The William Webb Ellis - Twickenham TW1 3RR
The Wrong 'Un - Bexleyheath DA6 8AS
The Star Light - Heathrow Airport Terminal 4 (airside)
Finally ....
Group of guys, all turning 40, discussed where they should meet for their birthday lunch. Finally it was agreed that they would meet at their local Wetherspoons because the drinks were cheap, the waitresses were pretty and they wore very short mini-skirts.
Ten years later, at age 50, the friends once again discussed where they should meet for lunch. Again, it was agreed that they would meet at Wetherspoons because the staff were attentive, the food was good and the ale selection was excellent.
Ten years later, at age 60, the friends again discussed where they should meet for lunch. Again, it was agreed that they would meet at Wetherspoons because there was plenty of parking close by, they could dine in peace if they reserved one of the quieter rooms at the back and it was exceptional value for money.
Ten years later, at age 70, the friends discussed where they should meet for lunch. Again, it was agreed that they would meet at Wetherspoons because the restaurant was wheelchair friendly, had a downstairs toilet for the disabled plus there was unlimited refills on the hot beverage selection.
Ten years later, at age 80, the friends discussed where they should meet for lunch. Finally, after much deliberation, it was agreed that they would meet at their local Wetherspoons because they'd never been there before.
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