The Duke of York, Borough, SE1

Early doors on a spring like Saturday morning.A few in, more sitting outside.Interesting windows that once would have opened onto the street, the mechanism now painted over. As mentioned above, a Shep's pub with no cask beer.Various keg fare on offer, though I chose a bottle of 1698: a worthy start to the day's proceedings. Perhaps the social barman was wise to advice me that it was 6%abv, though I lived to tell the tale. Likeable pub.

Dating in some form from 1794, but obviously rebuilt sometime in the 19th century, this was a Firkin pub for a while from the late ‘70s. A first in here and it’s well described below, certainly in the ‘gastropub’ mould, but was about 95% empty; five customers aside from me on a Friday night, when all other neighbouring pubs were doing a roaring trade. This is the only Shep’s pub I’ve been to where ale is on keg; I didn’t even know SN did keg, in this case, Whitstable Bay Ruby Ale, dispensed from a tap, cowering behind the extreme rarity in the London pub, that is the Perspex screen. It tasted vile: cold and fizzy, with a flavour that reminded me of watered-down Coke; I could only manage half of it before leaving. A creepy man came and stood in front of me to observe football on the TV above my head; another TV didn’t have a customer seated beneath it and as I didn’t like having my view dominated by his crotch, I went to sit elsewhere; oblivious to my actions, he sat in my seat. This was a very poor pub experience, so I see little reason to return; a previous reviewer sums it up thus: dull and lifeless.

Official site of The Duke of York - www.thedukeofyork.pub

Official site of The Duke of York - www.thedukeofyork.pub

A short distance from Elephant & Castle station, this is a pretty smart backstreet Shepherd Neame house. the pub has a simple bare boarded, roughly square room with the bar along the rear wall. Tables and chairs have been positioned through the centre of the room and under the front windows with high tables and stools over to the right under some notably large windows. The pub has been done out in a fairly uninteresting neutral colour scheme although the wall space to the right of the bar has been covered with wallpaper depicting an old map of London, which looked surprisingly good and added a bit of character to the space. The bar has a grey panelled counter that screams "Gastropub" as soon as you see it, plus a high tongue and groove bar back with a brewery clock and some nicely worked bits of decorative detail. There is a very small nook to the left of the bar which has lent itself to become quite a cosy seating area full of small framed paintings and a very noisy group of punters who added to the overall noise levels in a pub notably lacking soft furnishings. Elsewhere, the main item of decor had to be the blackboard, which was utilised throughout the pub, giving it a dull, corporate feel in places, although between all this it was possible to spot some nice photos and memorabilia themed around the Sheps brewery. Music was playing fairly loudly, adding to the general cacophony and a couple of TV screens were showing the news, with the sound mercifully turned off. Hot food was being promoted from a typical Sheps menu, but no-one was eating on my mid-week evening visit. Not much to choose from on the bar - just three Shepherd Neame beers in the form of Master Brew, Spitfire and Whitstable Bay. I paid £4.35 for a pint of the latter but I think I ended up with the keg version of the beer which I hadn't realised existed until the barmaid plonked it down in front of me, seemingly without having gone anywhere near the hand pumps. Thankfully, it was pretty drinkable and wasn't particularly carbonated, so I wasn't 100% sure I'd got the wrong beer after all. I used to visit this pub a fair bit in the mid 00's and it was interesting to find that it had barely changed a good 12 or so years later. It's a solid, unspectacular place away from the bustle of Elephant & Castle and Borough and I feel I always know exactly what I'm going to get here. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then this should be right up your street, but I can't get enthused by the place and was happy enough to head off after a quick pint.

The Duke of York is a corner pub which is in the shadow of a large railway bridge. Once inside there is a single square shaped room with the bar facing,the room is bare boarded,the seating mainly normal tables and chairs plus one pew seat and a leather settee. The pub is a Shepherd Neame tied house so i was well pleased in doing this pub,there are five pumps on the bar,but there was only one real ale on which was Master Brew,this drink went down very well. The pub was quite busy on my Tuesday dinner visit with a mix of drinkers and diners,decent background music was playing. I was quite happy having a drink in this pub. Pub visited 26/5/2015

This is still a Shepherd Neame pub, but just Spitfire and Late Red (£3.60 a pint) were on when I dropped in mid-afternoon on Wednesday. The Late Red was pretty good though. Food is available from 12 – 3.0 weekdays, and from 6.0 – 9.0 Monday to Thursday. I didn’t see any menus lying around, but a handful of specials were listed on a chalkboard, such as steak & Guinness pie for £8.95. Sausages seem to be a speciality, with several flavours on offer for £7.95. The exterior of the pub is quite attractive with lots of foliage in evidence, plus an unusual and quite exceptional depiction of the eponymous Duke in red brick on the corner of the building. The interior’s been completely madeover, but some rather nice original glass survives in the upper parts of the windows. Furnishings are the usual mix that you see in these madeover pubs – tall tables/stools, sofas/armchairs, chunky but standard design tables, plus some ordinary chairs. The building is overshadowed by the railway bridge outside, but nonetheless it’s a welcoming enough place to drop in for a pint, but certainly not worth going tp a lot of effort to find.