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Title: An East London Perambulation
Creator: Clive Thompson


Description:
This pub crawl took place on the afternoon of Friday 26th Feb 2010 with seven mates from work (we weren’t skiving, we had taken a half day off). The occasion was to celebrate, I think that’s the right word, the upcoming nuptials of one of our party who for some inexplicable reason had decided to enter wedlock for a second time. The forecast for the day was dreadful and we had visions of staying at one pub for the entire afternoon. But, as is often the case, the forecast was wrong and we had a dry and bright, if a little cold afternoon so were able to get around a few pubs. The route started around the old Spitalfields Market then up the Commercial Road to Aldgate. It’s an area where the edge of the City meets the edge of what would probably be considered East London and as such it’s a mix of old run down properties and new bars and galleries. We were mainly ale drinkers with some partial to a pint of Guinness and a couple of FP (Fizzy Piss) merchants.


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The Water Poet (1)
This is where we had arranged to meet up around 1.00pm and we were all thankful for the good weather as we wouldn’t really have wanted to spend all afternoon here. It’s an attractive pub in an old cobbled street but has become the ‘in’ place to be seen an
The Golden Heart (2)
For some bizarre reason the wallpaper in this pub has a 3D effect which makes it look like the walls are covered in corrugated iron. The only ale available was Adnams, which wasn’t that good.
The Ten Bells (3)
A famous Jack the Ripper pub as it'is rumoured some of his victims used it before the gory events of 1888. It's a bit beaten up now but there is some magnificent tiling including an impressive mural. Just Bombardier but went for a bottle of something.
The Gramaphone (4)
We should of course have gone to the Pride of Spitalfields next but to my horror we ended up here. There was a reasonably sized bar area, no real ales but there was Aspalls Cyder, Guinness and Bitburger on draught and between us we tried them all, twice.
The Aldgate Exchange (5)
I couldn’t remember the name of the next pub but a look at the maps show that it must have been this one. A bright and clean pub but a bit sterile with loads of white pine furniture. Deuchars and Pride were the beers of choice plus a couple of FP’s.
The Hoop & Grapes (6)
On now to the Hoop & Grapes, a fine old City pub. It was good to see the familiar face of Hamish behind the bar. Someone decided to order a round of champagne, a total waste of money in my opinion. The Ringwood Fortyniner was so much better.
Still & Star (7)
Honest boozer and the Flankers Tackle was good. I also recall some sambucas. This is the last reported pub but I had a couple of Bengal Lancers at Euston and it’s not beyond the bounds of certainty that some of the others stopped off somewhere as well.