FREEDOM PASS WETHERSPOONS PART 7
FREEDOM PASS WETHERSPOONS PART 7
It almost feels like I'm on the home straight now. But sweeping up the remaining far-flung Spoons requires a lot a travel. At least it's mostly by train, not underground, so I can look out the window.
I recently discovered Wetherspoons actually has a dress code: "Customers are requested to remain fully clothed throughout their visit, including wearing shoes." It's a bit late now.
The George - Wanstead - Part 7
Sign the Save The George petition here.
We can confirm that the George pub is currently on the market however it will continue operating as a Wetherspoon pub until is sold and we very much hope that you will still enjoy the pub until then.
We understand that you, the pub’s other loyal customers and our dedicated members of staff will be disappointed with this decision, however JD Wetherspoon has made the decision on a commercial basis which we believe is in the best interest of the company as a whole. We hope customers will choose to visit our other pubs in the area.We can confirm that staff will be given the opportunity for re-employment at other Wetherspoon pubs in the event that their pub is sold.
Nonetheless your comments and observations have been noted.
Thank you again for contacting us and for all your custom at the George.
Many thanks,
Laura, Wetherspoon Customer Services
..... this is their standard reply. But it's difficult to criticise Wetherspoons' business strategy when their food and drink prices are so competitive. At least their staff are retained, and living in London they won't live far from another Wetherspoons, eg ....
The Walnut Tree - Leytonstone (0.7 miles away)
The Great Spoon of Ilford (2.1)
Goldenglove - Stratford (2.5)
The New Fairlop Oak (2.8)
The Holland Tringham - Streatham
Whoops! Well, it was open according to the Wetherspoons website and 'busier than normal' according to Google Maps. Anyhow, I'd already done the research, so this is what I know about Holland Tringham:
Holland Tringham was a renowned artist and illustrator who lived in Streatham. His work appeared in many leading publications in the days before photographic reproduction became the norm. Tringham painted numerous scenes of Streatham. Six of them, displayed in the pub, became very familiar after being printed as postcards. He died in 1908, aged 45, shortly after being certified insane.
Update: It made no sense, apart from a desire for completeness, that I later trekked all the way back to the newly-refurbished Holland Tringham for an identical lunch I could have ordered in my local Spoons. Still, I'm pleased to report the pub has been very tastefully restored and the staff are very friendly.
Worth a visit, maybe later in the year, is Tooting Bec Lido which is nearer to Streatham than it is to Tooting Bec .....
.... it is the largest open air fresh water swimming pool in the UK and opened in 1906. I wonder if it is one of those things you can see from outer space - like the Great Wall of China or an unsightly pimple.
The air temperature was 7C so maybe a pool temperature of 12C wasn't so bad. Anyhow, preferring to sink a pint rather than sink or swim I walked for 30 minutes to ....
The Moon Under Water - Norbury
Another Wetherspoons that borrows from George Orwell suggests they couldn't find anything worthy of naming rights. My own research can only suggest The Stormzy Arms. The celebrated rapper attended Harris Academy in Norbury. Still, the pub is pleasant enough and my steak was fine, as was the warm chocolate fudge cake with ice cream.
The Greyhound and The Richmal Crompton - Bromley
The Greyhound is on the site of a pub of the same name which was built at the end of the 18th century.
Author Richmal Crompton, who lived in Bromley for 26 years, was best known for her William books .....
Just William, the first of her 39 William books, was published in 1922. As a boy I read a copy belonging to my father (born 1921). Crompton also wrote 41 novels for adults.
William - The Dictator came out in 1938. With hindsight it seems odd that, a year before the outbreak of WWII, Hitler was still being lampooned, a sobering thought with the US elections on the horizon.
Twelve million copies of the William books were sold in the UK alone. They have been adapted for films, plays, radio and television including the 1962 BBC TV series starring Dennis Waterman as William Brown.
Childen's fiction writer Enid Blyton also lived in Bromley. A blue plaque can be found on the wall of her former home in Shortlands Road.
Wells spent the first 13 years of his life in Bromley where his father owned a shop selling cricket equipment.
A mural honouring Wells (above, left) dominated Bromley Market Square from 1986 until it was painted over in 2008 with another mural (above, right) celebrating the life of Charles Darwin. This current artwork also features an inset of Wells' face and a portrait of a seated John Lubbock. The old Victorian town pump, circa 1860, sits in front of the mural.
Both Darwin and Lubbock lived in nearby Downe. Darwin wrote his famous Origin of Species in Downe House which I can recommend you visit.
Politician Lubbock is best remembered for introducing bank holidays when he was governor of the Bank of England.
Sir Joseph Swan lived in Bromley between 1883 and 1896 where he refined his great invention, the incandescent light bulb. Almost simultaneously, American Thomas Edison was working on a similar discovery. A series of problems with patents eventually led to the two scientists collaborating to establish Ediswan (Edison and Swan United Electric Light Company).
Also, whilst in Bromley (and to show all this isn't just thrown together) I saw .....
..... at Bromley's Churchill Theatre.
The excellent Chris McCausland is a blind scouse comedian (and Liverpool fan, bless him). Unlike other stand-ups, there's no chance of audience members being picked on. Chris explained his tour is entitled Yonks because he needed to come up with a name before he'd written any material. So he opted for something suitably vague. "Yonks" is defined as a very long time, as in "I haven't seen you/done this/had sex for yonks." It seems Chris puts this arbitrary time at around six years. For me it feels more like five, or pre-pandemic.
For my international readers not familiar with the term ....
Scouse - describes the dialect (yer know worra mean, like) of the good folk of Liverpool, known as Liverpudlians or Scousers. It has been described as a mixture of Irish and catarrh.
Scouse is also a Liverpudlian stew, traditionally very thick after standing on the stove for hours waiting for the sailor of the house to come home. 'Blind scouse' was the vegetarian version - when there was no money to buy meat.
An overnight in the local Budget Ibis followed by breakfast in The Richmal Crompton rounded off an action-packed couple of days in Bromley.
Herbert Wells - Woking (with Bob)
This pub isn't part of my original list as Woking station is beyond the range of my Freedom Pass. But my old pal Bob lives locally and on numerous occasions he's selflessly endured the shortcomings of South Western Railway to meet up for central London lunches. So it seems wholly appropriate for me to reciprocate for once.
I have to admit I didn't know that H. G. Wells was christened Herbert George. To add more confusion to people who are equally ignorant the Wetherspoons signage on The Herbert Wells is a bit cryptic. But there are plenty of references to the author inside the pub .....
Wells lived in Woking between 1895 and 1898 when he wrote The Invisible Man and most of The War of the Worlds - in which the Martian aliens land on Horsell Common in Woking.
"Very early in the morning Ogilvy, who had seen a shooting star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere on the common between Horsell, Ottershaw and Woking, rose early with the idea of finding it. Find it he did, soon after dawn, and not far from the sand pits."
The metal sculpture of Wells in the Herbert Wells is a bit odd. But there is a better likeness in the town centre .....
..... and there's also a 7.6 metre Martian Tripod created by Michael Condron. It was unveiled in 1998 by Carol Vorderman.
"After the glimpse I had of the Martians emerging from the cylinder in which they had come to the earth from their planet, a kind of fascination paralysed my actions."
H. G. Wells lived in 141 Maybury Road Woking (above) and is said to have cycled around the town imagining the buildings being targeted by the aliens.
Horsell Common is a bit of a hike from the pub so instead, after a nice lunch at Cote, we checked out the Woking Art Trail ....
- These four figures are all by sculptor Sean Henry who was born in Woking.
At opposite sides of the Bedser Bridge, over the Basingstoke Canal, are statues of Sir Alec Bedser bowling to his identical twin brother Eric.
The brothers played cricket for Surrey. They were both medium-fast bowlers but Surrey needed a spinner. So, they tossed a coin. Eric lost and became an all-rounder bowling off-spin. It turned out to be a good toss for Alec to win as he went on to become one of England's greatest fast bowlers. Eric never played for England - or received a knighthood.
Alec is on the right, apparently. It is said Frank Woolley once faced an over without realising they'd bowled three balls each.
- Finally - the Pizza Express in Woking will forever be associated with Prince Andrew .....
..... no sweat.
The Furze Wren and The Wrong 'Un - Bexleyheath
In 1773 John Latham discovered an unknown bird nesting in furze bushes on Bexley Heath. As Latham was living in Dartford at the time the furze wren it is also known as the Dartford Warbler. Its numbers had plummeted to a few pairs by the 1960s but have since recovered somewhat.
The Wrong 'Un is another name for a googly - a cricket term for a ball delivered by a right-arm leg spin bowler that turns in the opposite direction to what would normally be expected. Such a ball is also called a Bosie or Bosey after Bernard Bosanquet who originally devised the wrong'un.
The pub stands on the site of the first cricket field in Bexleyheath, then attached to a pub called the Golden Lion in the mid 1700s.
The Wrong 'Un is full of 'sarf' Londoners, several in a prolonged conversation about the merits of jellied eels, winkles and pickled herrings, none of which are on the menu here.
This is turning into a William Morris appreciation blog, with a guided tour of another of his former homes, The Red House in Bexleyheath .....
Lovingly restored by the National Trust, the Red House was Morris's favourite dwelling place. Unlike most houses of the time it is not symmetrical, having been designed around Wallace's desired dimensions of the rooms within.
Once the house was build, Morris asked the builders to leave the scaffolding up so he and his wife Jane could invite their friends round for decorating parties. The original ceiling (left) above the staircase was mapped out in advance then painted in later by guests. The stained glass windows were mainly the work of architect Philip Webb.
Morris started designing wallpaper after moving from Bexleyheath to London. But later occupants of the Red House used his designs to paper some of the walls. The cupboard (above, right) was painted by Morris. It depicts himself and Jane together with their bohemian friends. But Morris wasn't very good at painting faces so he left them blank to be finished by his friend Dante Gabriel Rossetti - who never got round to doing all of them.
A bust of William Morris (below, right) can be seen on the clock tower in front of the Furze Wren .....
The tower was built to commemorate the 1911 coronation of King George V (below, left). A bust a Queen Elizabeth II was added in 2012 to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee. A fourth alcove remains vacant.
Until recently, this bust was the only public statue of the Queen in London. Then, in 1923, King Charles unveiled statues of his parents flanking the south door of the Royal Albert Hall .....
..... the pair of bronzes were sculpted by the appropriately handled Poppy Field given they were unveiled just prior to the Festival of Remembrance on November 11 - I love a bit of nominative determinism. They were actually commissioned two years before the death of the Queen.
These statues have generally been 'well-received', but a recent unveiling at Antrim Castle has had 'mixed-reactions'!
The New Cross Turnpike - Welling
The New Cross Turnpike looks pretty nondescript from the outside. But inside it is on six levels including two beer gardens and a roof terrace. The toilets, in true Wetherspoons tradition, are at the end of a two long corridors on the fifth floor.
Although we normally think of them as American toll roads, turnpikes were originally British defensive barriers against cavalry attacks. They had pikes or bars which could be rotated to open or close a gate. Similar gates were used by Turnpike Trusts in Britain from the 17th century to enforce tolls. With the coming of the railways, the number of turnpikes declined and, from 1888, local councils were held responsible for maintaining such roads.
The New Cross Turnpike stands on what was Watling Street, the Roman road from London to Dover. Until 1865 it was a toll road maintained by the New Cross Turnpike Trust.
Previously a NatWest bank, it became a Wetherspoons free house in 1998.
Danson Park in Welling is wonderful - one would expect nothing less from Capability Brown. The formidable Charter Oak (above, right) is over 200 years old and one of the Great Trees of London. Maybe I can visit the other 60 trees after I've been to all the Wetherspoons. In 1937 Bexley Borough Charter was signed underneath the tree which, for pedants, is a pedunculate oak. It appears on the Bexley coat of arms.
Also impressive, beyond the tree, is Danson House, a Grade 1-listed 'Georgian mansion which serves as Bexley council registry office and has a café.
The Greenwood Hotel was built in the late 1930s and many of the original fittings have been retained - as have the main bar, saloon bar and public bar.
Northala Fields: This is a beautiful Northolt park, featuring four man-made hills built from the rubble of the old Wembley Stadium which was demolished in 2003.
The park has walking trails, playgrounds, fishing lakes, and, if you can manage the climb, stunning views of the London skyline including the distinctive arch above the new Wembley Stadium.
The Tichenham Inn - Ickenham (with Paul and Badger)
Tichenham, recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086, was an earlier name for Ickenham. It was a small farming community until the 1920s and still feels like a village. The pub is quite small for a Wetherspoons. It was pretty busy on a Thursday lunchtime, mainly with us pensioners.
The Pump (above, right) is the centrepiece of Ickenham. It was donated by Charlotte Gell who had founded five alms houses there. She left provision in her will for the well to be sunk and it was finished in 1866, three years after her death.
Swakeleys House in Ickenham is a Grade-I listed Jacobean mansion. It was built in 1638 for Sir Edmund Wright, a future Lord Mayor of London.
Apart from events, the house is not normally open to the public. But it can usually be visited as part of Open House London which runs from September 14-22 this year. So, I might go - although by then The Tichenham Inn will no longer be a Wetherspoons. The staff told us it had been sold and would soon become a sports bar. They have the option to continue working at Wetherspoons pubs - there are three others within three miles of Ickenham, in Uxbridge, Ruislip Manor and Rayners Lane.
TO COME IN PART 8 (still to write them up) ....
The Wibbas Down Inn - Wimbledon
The Watchman - New Malden
The Good Yarn - Uxbridge
The Village Inn - Rayners Lane
YET TO VISIT .....
J.J. Moon's - Kingsbury NW9 9ELJ.J. Moon's - Wembley HA9 6AA0
The Moon Under Water - Watford WD17 2BS
The Barking Dog - Barking IG11 8TU closed for refurbishment.
The Moon & Stars - Penge SE20 7QS
The Nonsuch Inn - North Cheam SM3 9AA
The Tailor's Chalk - Sidcup DA14 6ED
The Whispering Moon - Wallington SM6 8QF
The Barking Dog - Barking IG11 8TU closed for refurbishment.
The Moon & Stars - Penge SE20 7QS
The Nonsuch Inn - North Cheam SM3 9AA
The Tailor's Chalk - Sidcup DA14 6ED
The Whispering Moon - Wallington SM6 8QF
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