The Royal Duchess, Limehouse, E1

The Royal Duchess is a typical looking estate pub that was proably built to serve the estate that is behind it. The only door in use now is the one to the far left,once through this there is a pool table facing,the bar is to the right,this looked quite gawdy being in metalic blue and silver,there was comfy bench seating in both halfs of the pub,but more in the right side. Still no real ales on the bar,the keg bitter was Tetley smooth cold crap which it was. There was some pretty dire background music playing from the likes of Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra,this was for the pleasure of the only other customer,who looked very old. The one plus point for this pub was that it was open,with so many pubs on this stretch or road either boarded up,turned into another use or not open at the time of my visit. Pub visited 19/2/2014

There’s no real on sale here, just Tetley keg and with the usual array of lager fonts on the bar. There’s no food either, at least on weekday afternoons. I’m not surprised as with only two other drinkers in there on Wednesday lunchtime there's probably no demand for it. Set back from the busy Commercial Road with a few picnic benches at the front, this is a fairly uninspiring pub. There are two interconnected rooms, with the one on the left containing just fruit machines, a pool table, and a dartboard that seems to get a fair bit of use judging by the well-worn state of the scoreboard. The room on the right contains the seating, consisting of some banquettes, a few cheap looking plastic covered chairs, and some round wooden tables. I guess that it must be a boxing enthusiast’s pub as the walls are covered with numerous photographs of boxing greats. Music (and adverts) were courtesy of Magic Radio. There’s nothing here that would induce me to pay a return visit.