Golden Lion, Bexleyheath

The Original Golden Lion building was built in 1716 and was licenced as a pub from at least 1731. Deeds from the mid-18th Cnetury show it named as the Bull but this reverted back to the Golden Lion at some point, possibly after the pub was destroyed by fire in 1838 or when the current pub was built in 1901. Today’s Golden Lion is very much a fairly generic, laddish pub very much aimed at the bottom end of the market. The pub has little in the way of character and is little more than a cheap beer den for Sports fans but if this is all you want, it does it quite well with multiple flat screens (+ Big Screen) showing a diet of football (all channels shown). At the rear is a tucked away pool table. The beers are about as mainstream as beers get with just the one ale (Bombardier) which was decent enough and cheap as chips at £2.25. It is also worth mentioning that pub is wheelchair friendly with a separate disabled toilet. Unless you want to catch up on the latest football with groups of swearing lads, there isn’t much to make the Golden Lion worth visiting and with a Wetherspoons a hundred yards down the road, the cheap beers and food don’t really hold much pulling power.

This is a large pub with numerous flat screen TVs for showing Sky Sports and during my visit on Sunday evening two weeks ago the commentary from the darts that was being aired had to compete with the dance music being played as background music. It was fairly quiet with a couple of locals standing at the bar and some younger people were playing on the pool table. The Guinness was on good form and Bombardier was available on two hand pumps with the third being unused. There are advertisements for cheap food and drink deals, much like the Wetherspoons down the road. I wouldn’t go out of my way to drink here again.

Randomness Guide to London - Golden Lion entry

Randomness Guide to London - Golden Lion entry