The White Hart, Eltham, SE9

A classic brewers tudor exterior with three doors indicating a former interior seperate room layout now largely lost .There is wood panelling,but a lot has been painted over in modern light shades.Old brick fireplaces hide unused behind the flag of St George.The apex door has a long room to the left culminating in the pool room,and decent darts throw with french windows to a beer patio with the same pic nic benches that also exist to the frontage.To the right of the entrance is the former tap room with it's own door while around the side is a back lounge with some red leather bench seating and trad tables.The one feature you can't miss is the vast array of sports flatscreens ,seemingly on every space wall space,totally over the top and dominant.The mindless muzak didn't help. Naturally no real ale,two unused hasndpumps stand felorn and the keg selection was the usual multinational crap but at least my half of Stella only set me back £2.50.There are lots of discounted alcohol deals,6 shots of Jaegermeister from £11 anybody ? It could be so much better but just wants to competed with the equally awful Draughts up the road,so in it's current state there is no need for a revisit.

Official site of The White Hart - www.craftunionpubs.com

Official site of The White Hart - www.craftunionpubs.com

Despite the Carvery tag on the outside, this is very much an old-school Irish-run boozer in a nice large Brewer's Tudor building. Four areas are arranged round the central bar, with mostly tables at the front and sofas round behind the bar. The larger back room is the actual carvery part, when it is open. The interior is traditionally furnished and decorated with odd Irish knick-knacks, while a few TV screens show different sports. Sadly the only ale on offer was Doom Bar, and that in a pretty poor condition. The place could be restored to a cracking pub with minimal effort, but is probably more likely to be gutted or demolished at some point, which would be a shame.

This pub seems largely unchanged since Roger's visit a few years ago. But the ale selection is not quite as good - or perhaps more accurately it's even poorer. There are still three handpumps, but only one was clipped, for the ubiquitous Doom Bar, at £1.95 a half, although it was in excellent condition. It's still branded as a pub and carvery, with a large area at the back on the left set aside for diners, with a lectern doing sentry duty at its entrance. There was no-one in there mid-afternoon on Wednesday afternoon; I didn't see a menu; and the self-service counter was devoid of food. No doubt we visited at the wrong time for food. The main bar area is at the front of course, still divided in two by a wall, but with a doorway allowing movement between the two rooms. At the back on the right is a small room dominated by a couple of massive sofas, as well as having a single small round table and chairs. The main bar area has more sofas plus some normal tables and chairs. The fielded paneling on the walls look like original inter-war fittings, but the latticed windows look like modern replacements. The brewer's Tudor exterior is complemented by brown painted beams on the ceilings inside. I saw a "beer garden" advertised but didn't explore it. This is a landmark traditional old pub. There were only a handfull of customers when we visited on Wednesday afternoon, but hopefully gets busier at the weekends or evenings. It's comfortable enough inside, and would be a winner with a couple of decent ales on.