The Hare & Hounds, Waddon, Croydon

Facebook page of The Hare & Hounds - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of The Hare & Hounds - www.facebook.com

This is a Taylor walker pub located on the busy Purley Way near a number of retail parks. The pub has quite an attractive exterior with some unusual ironwork making it quite distinctive. Despite plenty of evidence of previous partitioning into various rooms, the pub has sadly now been opened up into one enormous, broad L-shaped room which is carpeted pretty much throughout. You enter to a wide space with a pool table to the left of the front door and the servery running along the left hand side of the room a little further back. The bar counter breaks at the corner, emphasising where the old wall used to be, before resuming in the rear part of the room. This area is dominated by a number of huge bookcases full of dusty old hardbacks and also boasts an attractive moulded ceiling with a large chandelier in the centre. For such a large room, the lack of seating is very apparent, with a few tables and chairs down the right hand side of the pub and some ancient looking sofas and tub chairs to the rear. A few old paintings are dotted here and there and a selection of old bottles, jugs and vases line several shelves. Another pool table can be found at the far end of the room and there were a number of TV screens on showing an old Arnie movie which the barman was avidly watching. A sizeable, partially covered patio can be found out through the rear doors with some high tables and stools available as well as table football. Sadly there is no cask ale available, so I ended up with a pint of keg Tetley’s for £2.80, although I could have indulged myself in a four pint jug for a tenner had I spotted the blackboard detailing such offers earlier. With such a limited range available across such a long bar counter, the servery ends up looking depressingly bare – all the more so given the lack of hand pumps. This was probably quite a nice pub once upon a time, but sadly the various changes that have been imposed on the building over the years have taken their toll and there are now just a few hints of its former glory. Perhaps worth a quick sneaky peek, but I don’t see myself making a return visit.