Hemingford Arms, Barnsbury, N1

An Ivy ensnared pub with a great interior well described before me, the beer selection wasn't quite so glorious with Greene King Ipa, house beer Hemingford Gunner, T.T Landlord and Gorgeous Glowfly which turned out a bit like homebrew. However well worth a look.

Official site of Hemingford Arms - www.metropolitanpubcompany.com

Official site of Hemingford Arms - www.metropolitanpubcompany.com

The ale selection in here was reasonable, but no better than that even though they had four ales on. The ales on were: Doom Bar, GK IPA, Purity UBU (£3.80 a pint), and something called “Hemingford Gunner”, which I suspected might be re-badged GK beer and thus avoided. The only food available seemed to be Thai, and which typically seemed to be a separate business to the pub, as you ordered and paid for your meal at a hatch to the kitchen. A standard chicken/ginger stir fry and rice weighed in at £6.95. The building itself is covered in foliage, in an apparent attempt to offer some competition to the Churchill Arms in this respect. The building may have some signage on it, but there’s no way of knowing under all the foliage. Inside it’s carpeted, and furnished mainly with settles, normal tables and chairs, plus some small stools. But what sets this pub apart from most others is the mass of bric-a-brac everywhere. Hanging from the ceiling is a collection of just about everything imaginable – including music instruments, sports equipment, jugs and the like, a couple of swords, and even a stuffed badger. You don’t see that in a pub every day! They’ve even gone to the trouble of putting up a heavy duty shelf between a couple of the cast iron pillars in the centre of the room to display some large barrels. No space here is left unfilled. Other things of interest here are the original vestibules at the two entrances still in use; the matchboard wooden panelling on the ceiling; and the rather nice stillion as a centrepiece behind the central island bar. There were a couple of TVs on showing the football, and I saw a quiz night advertised for Thursdays. It doesn’t look as if a great deal of money has been spent on this place in recent years, and frankly it’s all the better for that. Long live preservation by poverty! This place has retained all its original pub character, and I would be delighted to pay another visit sometime.