The Country House, Earlsfield, SW18

With an address that sounds like a villainous race from an episode of Dr Who, this is a mid-19th century backstreet pub, a stone’s throw from Earlsfield overground station. It’s on CAMRA’s inventory of pubs with historic interiors, this being of Outstanding National Historic Importance, pics available on their site. This is a very traditional pub with a games machine, unobtrusive sport, darts and some sort of coits/skittles game overheard in a separate room. Customers were a mixed local bunch and seemed in good spirits on my Saturday visit at 10.00pm. An initially enticing six pumps on the red lino bar top, amounted to four unused, thereafter a reversed Landlord clip then Sussex Best at a reasonable £2.60 a half, served by a friendly very old-school landlady and in very good shape it was too. This is as far as you can get from the neighbouring Earlsfield, where no doubt the young crowd sup gins infused with anchovies or some such; this place is certainly worth a visit, but the electronics are a distraction and the cask choice is limited.

Facebook page of The Country House - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of The Country House - www.facebook.com

Just a short walk from Earlsfield station, this is a nice, traditional multiple room backstreet boozer that serves a down-to-earth bunch of locals, in sharp contrast to the many fancy gastro pubs that plague this neighbourhood. Entering through the corner doors, you find yourself in a good sized public bar, with exposed floorboards, dark beams across the ceiling and the servery along the rear wall. The bar has an attractive, curved dark wood counter with a matching mirrored bar back. Tables and chairs fill the space to the left of the servery, whilst a run of high tables and padded stools can be found under the front windows, which have a mix of etched lower panes, and smaller bulls-eye inserts in the upper row. The walls have mid-height dark wood panels and have been decorated with a series of wall-mounted plates, offset by some TV screens showing horse racing to a rapt group of customers. An opened out doorway to the right leads into a small side room with its own little serving hatch under a frosted glass screen. Three high tables with stools fill the room with a bit of space left for a dartboard and oche, whilst further TV screens were showing muted live Italian football to no-one in particular. A brick fireplace on the end wall was sadly obscured by a large advert for the pub’s smartphone quiz, but had a few posters and brass items on the mantelpiece and above. A rear lounge could be viewed through the servery, but it appeared to be in darkness, so I was unable to explore properly. I received a very warm welcome from the old-school landlord, and was faced with a choice of three cask ales - Taylors Landlord, Wychwood Hobgoblin and Three Sods IPA. I tried a pint of the latter which was in very good nick and I enjoyed supping whilst listening to the locals chatting nonsense to each other. Pubs like this, offering a traditional multiple room layout with well-kept beer and no concessions to family dining or hipster craft beers, are increasingly hard to find in South London these days, so it was great to stumble across this place which ticked all those boxes. Definitely the place to go in this part of town if you want some good quality ale in a proper pub environment.

Went here yesterday seeking Harveys and a dartboard, unfortunately neither remain. I very much liked the décor and feel of the place, but just Doombar and Wimbledon Brewery Common Pale, both doubled up, on handpump. Friendly publicans, the guv expected to be busy later for the England rugby. Another miserable mcfc failure was the early showing on the flatscreen.