The Paxton, West Norwood, SE27

The Paxton is a large and grand looking pub that is in a upmarket area of West Norwood. Once inside the bar faces,there is a large room to the front which runs the width of the pub,the seatnig is normal tables and chairs,there was a TV to the left showing the Norwich v Sunderland game,this area was full of yummie mummy's and daddy's with their young children who were dining. There are more seating area to the rear which are down steps,these areas have bench seating and normal tables and chairs,the floor is bare boarded throughout. There were four real ales on the bar,i had a drink of London Beer Factory Beyond the Pale which went down well,the other beers were Dark Star pale Ale,Southwark Mosaic and GK IPA. There was decent background music playing. I thought this was a decent enough pub with some decent beer on the bar. Pub visited 16/4/2016

Very impressive looking pub from outside and bright and fresh inside.Good large garden at rear.Good selection of keg beers from Meantime, Hackney and Trumans.Four handpumps inc Hackney -love not war and Florence-dam tasty beaver beer.(dam tasteless imo).Reasonably priced beer for this food led pub.

This pub had on a reasonably good ale selection, comprising GKIPA, Sambrook Pumphouse Pale Ale, Sharp's Equinox Citrus IPA, and Dam Tasty Beaver Beer. I'm not a great fan of citrus beers, and the Beaver Beer had some spicy additive so the only real choice, for me anyway, was the Pumphouse Pale Ale, which was in excellent shape and a nice refreshing drink. Despite the four ales on, this struck as a largely food led pub. There's an open to view kitchen on the right, and not much that could be regarded as traditional pub grub - e.g. "Harissa lamb, bittersweet salad & yoghurt dressing" for £12. I had a salt beef bagel, with gherkin and fries, for £8.50. The fries came in a little metal bucket thingy, and the bagel was made of bread (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) and was the size and shape of a ringed doughnut. All a bit unusual but rather good nonetheless. The pub itself is something of a monolith dominating a busy junction, and overlooking the old plague pits. It's mainly painted that ubiquitous battleship grey on the outside, although it's thankfully reverted to its original name (named after Joseph Paxton who designed the Crystal Palace that housed the Great Exhibition, and which ended up just up the road from the pub) after a spell as The Mansion. Inside it's bare-boarded, and furnished with a mixed bag of cheap looking furnishings, but no tall tables/tall stools. I suppose it must cost a lot of money to get a place looking this cheap. The pub stretches back a long way into a lowered area, where there are shelf dividers containg a load of vases and the like. This in turn leads out into a garden at the back. I didn’t see any sign of one armed bandits, pool tables or dartboards. But it does have disabled access, and a disabled toilet on the ground floor in the main bar. This is another pub that’s lost its original pub character, but it’s not a bad place for all that.

Official site of The Paxton - www.thepaxtongipsyhill.com

Official site of The Paxton - www.thepaxtongipsyhill.com

This place is far too food orientated for my liking, but it was very busy on the week night I visited so they must know what people in the local area want. There are three hand pumps, but only Greene King IPA was available on my visit as one clip was turned and the other pump was unused. There is a standard and premium lager selection and my Guinness was well served, if maybe a tad expensive. There is a plasma screen around the back of the bar, but this was off even though there was a champions league game on. I shouldn't really be that surprised as the main feature of this pub is a large shiny piano. There is also a restaurant type area at the rear of the pub that has an open kitchen, but there were no diners whilst I was there as there seemed to be a couple of organised poker games in progress. I found the staff to be extremely friendly and attentive and I would say that they were the best feature of the pub. This isn't my sort of place so I'll not be returning, but I can see the attraction.