The Cockpit, EC4

As others, I found a good "boozer" feel to The Cockpit. 4 ales on the bar - the Five Points XPA was in fine form; Harvey's, Pride & Landlord were also on the pumps. The punters were mostly out on the pavement, so a couple of tables were left free inside. There's also stools at the bar, if you want to be in the way. The bar was single-staffed, with a bit of a queue forming, so some of the pints came up a bit short of 568ml as the server dealt with the crowd. Pub wi-fi required the creation of an account, but the Fullers pub over the road had a strong enough signal that I connected to that instead. A good option if you're in the Blackfriars area.

A splendid looking corner pub shaped in a slightly curved wedge shape. Inside it has the feel of a proper locals boozer complete with a well worn carpeted floor. The bar on the raised upper level had four handles with Four beers beers on the go, St Austell Tribute, Harveys Sussex Best, Timothy Taylor Landlord and Gipsy Hill Hepcat. A decent pub.

This is a Grade II listed ground floor pub in a fine corner building whose current guise dates from around circa 1860. Fairly small inside with an interesting layout from its cockfighting days and it has a pleasurable well-worn feel to it. The bar supports four hand pumps and three were in operation for our visit with TT Landlord and St Austell’s Tribute and Proper Job. Between us we went through all three and they were all in good nick, especially my Proper Job. This was a very pleasant pub for an afternoon pint in the city and worth doing as a double with the nearby Rising Sun.

This superb old corner pub is very easy to imagine hosting the sport from which it takes its name. The bar is up a couple of steps if entering from the corner door, but there is a side door from Ireland Yard which gives level access. There are four hand pumps with St Austell Tribute, Shepherd Neame Whitstable Bay, Timothy Taylor Landlord and Adnams Southwold Bitter available. I went for the Tribute, which was ok. As with the other back street pubs hereabouts, there was a good after work crowd in here, but with the pub being quite small, if six or eight of them decided they had trains to catch the place would soon seem quiet. I liked it here but was not terribly impressed with the beer offering, which was unadventurous and samey.