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The Queens Head, North Kingston, Kingston Upon Thames
Kingston Upon Thames
KT2 5HA
Pub Type
Punch TavernsReviews (Current Rating Average: 5 of 10) see review guidelines
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
john gray left this review about The Queens Head
Pleasant gasto pub with 4 Fullers beers.Outside seating.What more can I say.
On 16th May 2019
- rating: 6
[User has posted 1023 recommendations about 1009 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Moby Duck left this review about The Queens Head
Very much a dining pub with much of the seating within the pub set as thus, to the extent that I did not feel comfortable sitting at a table with just a drink albeit in work (not too grubby) clothes, thankfully there were a few bar stools, one of which I took advantage of. Some of the internal decor may have changed since Rex's review of some four years ago but the pub unsurprisingly remains sterile and charmless.Beers on in this Fullers pub were ,Pride,Oliver's Island and Gales Spring Sprinter,there was also a Cider on hand pull, Seacider. Not a pub I am likely to return to, despite the friendly service.
On 31st March 2017
- rating: 4
[User has posted 1872 recommendations about 1845 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Rex Rattus left this review about The Queens Head
This pub is housed in a magnificant old red brick building, with its overall apperance enhanced by the shrubbery planting at the front. It certainly has the appearance that might entice one in. But inside it's very different (how many times have I said that?). It's clearly had yet another makeover since the previous two reviewers' visits, having apparently now gone down the minimalist decor route. The first thing that strikes you as you enter through the main door is the quartet of floor to ceiling posts on the left, seemingly carved to have the appearance of enormous bamboo poles. On the right are too many tall tables and tall stools, and on the left a range of uncomfortable tall-ish sofa type seats - the ones with deep seats where if you're only slightly vertically challenged that when you lean back your feet don't reach the floor. Continuing back behind and to the left of the central servery, there are some semi-circular booths and some normal tables and chairs. The outside seating is still there in the garden at the back, as well as some tables & chairs and picnic benches at the front. The walls are painted duck egg green; there's some exposed brickwork; and one wall had some light-coloured lapboard themed wallpaper. They've obviously tried to give the place a sort of lounge bar feel - emphasised by the enormous Champagne bottle (A Midas perhaps?) behind the bar.
There were however three ales on - Doom Bar, Adnam's Southwold Bitter and Twickenham Grandstand (£1.70 a half). The Grandstand was not in particularly good shape, but I may have just been unlucky as I rate Twickenham ales quite highly. There was a fourth pump with another Twickenham clip reversed. The tables all had a single-sheet menu on them, with main courses from £8 with the top of the range being the beer-battered haddock & chips with mushy peas and tartare sauce at £11.95.
Clearly a fair bit of money and effort has been spent on this place to remove it as far as possible from being a locals' boozer, but for me it has only served to remove the pub character it no doubt once had. This is just one more magnificent pub that has had its guts ripped out, although I've no doubt that many prefer these sanitised places. But it's not my favourite sort of pub.
On 3rd June 2013
- rating: 5
[User has posted 2606 recommendations about 2520 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Malden man left this review about The Queens Head
Reported as closed in last week's Surrey Comet, however I had a drive past today and it remains open with a banner outside proclaiming that it is under new management.
On 12th January 2012
- no rating submitted
[User has posted 1708 recommendations about 1681 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
John Bonser left this review about The Queens Head
Occupying a prominent street corner position on the main road between Ham and Kingston is The Queens Head, a large solid looking red brick Victorian pub.
This is a pub that I’ve passed numerous times over the years on the Number 65 bus, but, prior to last week, never actually bothered to call in on, principally because it seems to have suffered from a number of name changes and reincarnations over the years. Previously Eddie Ryans and then The Owl and Pussycat, it has now reverted back to its original name of The Queens Head.
It’s a large single bar pub with several different areas, and, with entrance doors on each street, I would imagine that it was once a typical multi room Victorian pub, although sadly, no original features remain to confirm this.
The Queens Head describes itself externally as a “Pub and Kitchen” and, as we enter, we see a typically extensive menu on the trademark fixed blackboard on the wall. Close by this, another blackboard tells us that the pub believes in organic, fair trade and farm assured produce. We’re told that their meat is supplied by Bentleys of Surrey and that they also supply such well known establishments as Claridges and The Fat Duck, plus also Marco Pierre White.
Notably, against this background, what one might expect to be a food led destination pub with an urban professional thirty something customer base is, based on my two visits, nothing of the sort, but instead very much a locals pub with an atmosphere and ambience that reflects this.
The interior extends round both sides of the centrally positioned bar counter. The area on the left is bare boarded, with standard tables and chairs for dining. The light coloured walls are decorated with a mixture of old retro advertising posters ( eg – Oxo ) , a few brewery mirrors ( eg – Tolly Cobbold ) and some old photos of the pub, from which we see it branded as a Charringtons Entire house. Near the back of this area is a fireplace with a brick surround, over which is a Bass mirror. Here, a small framed print tells us that, in 1745, the pub landlady of The Queens Head at the time was punished for scolding by being ducked in the river from Kingston Bridge in a cucking stool, an event that apparently drew a crowd of several thousand onlookers. Behind this fireplace is a small snug area with several sofas which leads out to The Coach House Garden – a rather scruffy outside patio area that had clearly not been cleaned or swept for some considerable time and which contained, on the tables, some of the dirtiest glass ashtrays that I can remember seeing for ages. Just inside the door, a damaged model ship was sitting rather forlornly on a small table.
Whilst not a sports led pub, the pub advertises the availability of Sky Sports and, on my Saturday visit, a total of 3 televisions were tuned to the Blackburn v Man United game. One of these screens was in a small snug area round the right hand side of the bar, where there’s also a dart board.
There’s 5 handpumps and, on my Thursday visit, Sheps Spitfire, Greene King IPA and Youngs Ordinary were on, with the Spitfire - £ 3.50p – being excellent. On my Saturday visit, only Greene King IPA was on, served through one of those tall chrome swan neck fonts that seem to be cropping up. I didn’t detect any real emphasis or interest in real ale and, with the notable exception of the pleasant barmaid who made a point of asking if the IPA was OK, I didn’t detect what I would regard as a particularly warm or welcoming atmosphere.
Like the esteemed Maldenman, whose review incidentally I hadn’t seen before my visit, I’m not sure where this pub is trying to position itself, and I’m not sure they know either. I’m not planning on getting off the Number 65 bus again to investigate further.
On 17th May 2011
- rating: 4
[User has posted 560 recommendations about 560 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Malden man left this review about The Queens Head
This is one of those pubs that seems a little unsure as to what it is trying to be. With scrubbed and light coloured farmhouse style tables each with tea-light candles, single flowers in vases containing pebbles, and a low level jazz soundtrack, you would be forgiven in thinking this place would be aiming for the local affluent 30-somethings with food a priority. The theme is reinforced by two small snug like recesses, either side of the pub and to the rear of the central bar, both set out with low level sofas, subdued lighting and so on. There is certainly that upmarket feel, however on my early evening visit the clientele were mainly builders propping up the bar drinking pints, no sign of anyone eating etc.
The main area has wood flooring around the bar and is carpeted to the sides, dark stained wood panelling and the upper walls painted white/cream. Prints of old adverts in frames and a few brewery mirrors (Guinness, Jack Daniels, Tolly's Original) decorate the walls. A couple of TVs offered Wimbledon or some game show both muted.
Five pumps on the bar offered an unadventurous selection of GK IPA, two with Young's Ordinary and two reversed, both being Bombardier.
There is an outdoor seating area to the front/side, covered with a glazed canopy.
I have to say I was disappointed by the beer choice and that the ambience and atmosphere were not to my taste.
On 23rd June 2010
- rating: 5
[User has posted 1708 recommendations about 1681 pubs]