The Walrus & The Carpenter, Monument, EC3

Started our crawl here before lunch on Tuesday so it was nice and quiet. Excellent friendly service and very good selection of well-kept ales - I had a pint of Redemption's Urban Dusk which was a really good pint to start off on.

Nice traditional old style Pub thats been modernised into one large room but it looks OK the way its been done. There were Plenty of festival Beers too choose from on Tap when we went in and I would return again if passing. I must Just watch out for the steps when entering :-)

A large selection of real ale is reason enough to pay a visit to this Nicholsons house.However ,compared with some of their other City outlets,I thought the interior was less traditional and charming.A former corner door,now a window,is evidence of a previous two room layout which has sadly been lost.Another small niggle is the lack of a chalk board noting the full range of ales:having struggled to get to the nearest collection of handpumps from the front door,there was a lack of will to push further round to see what the other rank of handpumps had to offer.Clearly this wouldn't have been a problem at a quieter time.However the bar service was efficient,and the ale quality good.Well worth another visit.

My recent visit was the first for many years when it was I believe a Youngs pub before being taken on by Nicholsons in November 2006. The pub name is taken from a Lewis Carroll poem featured in Through The Looking Glass although his connection with the local area aren’t immediately apparent to me even though he pops up in one way or another throughout the pub from “Alice” related annotated pictures and displays on the walls to the upstairs Bar & Dining Room that bears his name. The bare floored main bar was originally divided in two but has now been knocked through into a single L-shape albeit retaining a certain degree of separation courtesy of a wooden screen. Nicholsons have retained its traditional style and in many ways it does feel like a typical City pub without any of the modern loungey pretentious gimmicks that now blight so many pubs. Downstairs is a cellar bar that I presume to be more of a wine bar but I didn’t explore this far into the bowels of the building. The 10 hand pumps had a good range of ales from the seasonal pool of Nicholson guest beers alongside the regulars Pride, Doom Bar and Landlord. Some of the pumps were doubled up with similar ales and the 2 banks of hand pumps are not immediately visible without roaming half way round the bar so best to check the beer list on the wall for the full list of what is available. Prices are reasonable for the area. There was a good fixed price lunch menu with a selection of main courses for £5.95 or 2 courses for £8.95. I diod not notice any TVs but thre was background piped music. As it was a mid-afternoon appearance, I can’t vouch for how busy it gets but one can safely assume that like all city pubs, peak times could be quite uncomfortable if you don’t bag what appeared to be a fairly limited number of tables. Despite my rather faded memories of previous visits, I can’t help feel the place has lost a bit of its charm although the improved range of ales that Nicholsons offer still make it a worthwhile place to drop in.

Randomness Guide to London - Walrus And The Carpenter entry

Randomness Guide to London - Walrus And The Carpenter entry

Official pages of The Walrus & Carpenter, contains menu and cask ale details - www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk

Official pages of The Walrus & Carpenter, contains menu and cask ale details - www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk

A decent sized corner pub just off Lower Thames Street. Beer choice has improved of late and now provides a bit of a better choice. Seven real ales on which, as well as the house TT Landlord and Pride, included five guests from regional brewers. These included seasonal beers, Davenports Fall, Cairngorm Autumn Nuts and Cameron's Autumn drop, along with Wolvers Ale from the Newman's brewery in Wales and Brunette from the Morrisey Fox partnership. Internally there are two rooms on the ground floor and a restaurant known as the Lewis Carol dining room above. The pub also benefits from a fairly large outside pavement area to accomodate outside drinkers in the summer months. Despite the pub ,(or to be precise the pavement outside) heaving with after work suits on this fine autumnal evening, we didn't experience any real problems getting served and between us we tried most of the ales with the favourites being the Cairngorn and surprisingly Neil Morrisey's Brunette, which indicates he could finish up to be a better brewer than he was an actor.