Canterbury Arms, SE17

This looks like a 60s or perhaps 70s estate pub, built as an integral part of the estate it is designed to serve. I thought that this was a pub for the truly desperate. And I was numbered among that number as the three previous pubs that I had planned to visit had all closed, leaving this as the sole survivor within easy walking distance. There’s no real ale of course (although a sole lonely and unloved handpump sitting in splendid isolation on the bar had given me a glimmer of hope of something decent to drink even though it was unclipped) – I went for a half of Stella in preference to John Smith’s. There were two bars, although I didn’t venture into the back bar. The front bar where I sat had some patched up and dirty banquettes plus some well worn – but clean – tables as furnishings. There were a few prints on the walls, and a TV was on tuned in to a news channel. I don’t expect to make a return visit.