Princess of Wales, WC2

Randomness Guide to London - Princess Of Wales entry

Handily placed for Charing Cross station but a rather dull pub by Nicholsons standards. Unadventurous beers (Bombardier, Pride and IPA) although reasonably priced for the area. Quite dark with very little natural light. Decent screens for footie although the big screen suffers from poor definition during daylight hours. Good service even when packed with World Cup viewers. Nothing particularly offensive but there are better pubs around if you know where to look.

Official pages of the Princess of Wales, contains menu and real ale details - www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk

Official pages of the Princess of Wales, contains menu and real ale details - www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk

There's nothing special about this pub, but it is good for watching the football and having a couple of quick pints before stumbling onto the tube. The quiz machine robbed me of a few quid but I can't really blame my stupidity on the pub. I've happened upon a lot worse pubs than this so I can't grumble, but I wouldn't go out of my way to visit again.

They had London Pride, Timothy Taylor Landlord and Young's Bitter on when I dropped in on Wednesday lunchtime. The TTL was OK. This is a very gloomy place with little or no natural light getting in, not helped by the canopy outside, obviously for the benefit of smokers. There was a large flat screen TV in one of the corners, but it was switched off. Fairly cold as well, with whatever heating there was being unable to offset a bitterly cold February day. It was bare-boarded throughout, which always seems to make a pub seem colder than one that is carpeted. In my opinion it’s not one of the better Nicholson’s pubs. In short, a pretty nondescript pub with nothing special about it – other than being very handy for Charing Cross Station, and being better than the Boadicea. I can't see any reason to make a special effort to return though.