The Boleyn Tavern, E6

Facebook page of The Boleyn Tavern - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of The Boleyn Tavern - www.facebook.com

A slalom past the throng of matchday burger vans along Green Street saw my first pub visit of the year (and a revisit at that) prior to the early kick-off against Liverpool on the 2nd Jan. This high-ceilinged London corner boozer was packed at 11:30 in the morning as you can imagine, but numerous attentive staff kept waiting times to a minimum. Two handpumps provided London Pride and Wychwood Hobgoblin - the latter of which was in decent enough nick. All prices seemed to come in at £4.00, which probably has more to do with a pre-match tariff than anything else. A revisit will be necessary as I am still yet to inspect the billiards room as previous visits have been on matchdays where it's difficult not to play sardines at the main bar, although after May this year this shouldn't be a problem.

The Boleyn ( the "Tavern" part of the name seems to have been dropped ) is an imposing street corner local in the shadow of West Ham's football ground. It's a well preserved multi-roomed Victorian pub which features in CAMRA's book of London Heritage Pubs where it is described as "one of the more spectacular late Victorian pubs in London". A central island bar serves a number of different interconnecting rooms. A longish narrow room with an entrance on Green Street appears to be the preserve of locals and contains a dartboard and some West Ham pictures behind the bar. At this entrance, we see old etched door glass being the names "private bar" and "saloon and billiards". The billiards room is the architectural highlight of the pub with a splendid large stained glass skylight and an unusual decorated moulded frieze. The main adjoining saloon bar also has a fine stained glass skylight and some wooden partitions. There's also an original bar counter and some fine cast iron columns. On my recent Sunday early afternoon visit, with the exception of half a dozen or so customers in the public bar, the pub was virtually deserted. I'm afraid that I formed the view that management is making little real effort - for instance a prominently positioned sandwich board on the pavement outside was advertising the "World Cup Final, Holland v Spain 11 July" even though this game had taken place a fortnight earlier. Similarly, a notice in the billiards room invited me to "join us for the World Cup". There's no real ale, so I went for the draught Guinness - £ 3 - served by a barmaid who, whilst being reasonably welcoming, seemed genuinely surprised to see someone she didn't recognise. This pub won't appeal to everybody, but if you're in to ornate Victorian pub interiors, you should seek it out. Finally, when you're here, don't forget to cross the road to admire the splendid statue of Bobby Moore with his team mates holding aloft the 1966 World Cup.

This is another late Victorian gem that has retained almost all of its original features. All the usual attractive features are present, including carved dark wood and etched and cut glass. I’m not going to describe it in detail – either visit yourself or look at CAMRA’s “The inside Story”. It’s a very large pub, subdivided up into several big rooms, including a lounge at the back that features a pool table and a dartboard. Indeed when I was in at lunchtime during the week, a couple of the bars had not been opened, as they were clearly not needed to satisfy demand. I’m sure it would be different on a match day. They hadn’t introduced any of those faddish high tables and stools that you see all over the place – only normal tables and chairs for this pub. Unfortunately they didn’t have any real ale either. I suppose that there’s little call for it in this part of the world. As a pub I really like it as it’s incredibly attractive from a historically aesthetic point of view, but the absence of a decent ale is pretty much a fatal flaw in my book.

Very large corner local.2 main bars one with a pool table.Wood and glass abound.No real ale.Imagine this pub could get packed when the "Hammers" are playing at home as their ground is at the back of the pub.