Bricklayers Arms, West Norwood, SE27

The Bricklayers arms is a proper back street pub that i had a few problems in finding. Once i found this pub i was well pleased a proper old school pub with a great free standing Courage sign outside. Once inside the bar faces on entry, there is a smart lounge to the left which is L shaped,the room is carpeted and has comfy bench seating and chairs,there is a TV to the rear which was showing the Bolton v Middlesbrough game. There is a smaller bar room to the right which is through an opened out doorway,this room is oblong shaped and has bench seating and a pool table in it,the TV in this room was showing horse racing. There were three pumps on the bar one with a Courage Best pump clip on it,so i asked for that to be told it was not on,so i had to settle for a drink of John Smiths Smooth Crap which lived up to its name. I was well pleased in doing this pub just a shame there was not a real ale on the bar. Pub visited 16/5/2016

There was just the one ale on – Courage Best, at £2.80 a pint, and I wasn’t confident that they would have even one on. There was no food available, but they did have a “Sahara” peanuts dispenser on the bar counter. There are two rooms, although interconnected through a doorway. The smaller of the two rooms is on the right and is the more basic of the two, and would have been, and in effect still is, the public bar. It contained games and fruit machines, a dartboard, an apparently unused table football game, and nothing else except a punter wrestling with the intellectual challenge of the games machine. The other room – effectively the saloon bar – is a bit more comfortable, being carpeted and containing some standard seating. There was however a pool table at the back of this room (there wouldn’t have been room for it in the public bar). There’s a disabled toilet at the back past the pool table. This is a very basic backstreet boozer with just a handful of locals in when I visited on Wednesday afternoon. This is a dying breed, at least in London. It’s certainly not a destination pub, but I’m very pleased that it’s still here for the locals who clearly appreciate it.