The Bricklayers Arms, Kingston Upon Thames

A Greene King flea pit. A basic, sparse and scruffy long room with worn wood floor, scraggy furniture, green and cream colour scheme. Darts off to right, TV to left with mute rugby. Three pumps, two on - a house beer from the GK stable and a terrible mouldy-tasting GK IPA. Rolls behind the bar but after tasting the beer there was no way I was touching one. The only upside was a friendly face behind the bar. We were the only customers on a Saturday lunchtime and it wasn’t hard to see why. A dead pub walking.

This is a down to earth locals pub which seems to take much of it's custom from the nearby Cambridge Estate, certainly since the demise of all the estate pubs. It has recently had a bit of a spruce up but remains a fairly bland functional place. The inside is L-shaped with the bar opposite the entrance, wooden flooring except at each end section where there is a patterned carpet. There is a pool table to the right hand end and a usable dartboard to the left side. The rear has a decent sized walled garden with some cover however the smokers tend to congregate on the front forecourt where often there are more of them outside than persons inside the pub. Nearly all traditional type seating, décor is limited to a few framed random prints and a corner unit containing a few books. TV on the wall, quiz and fruit machines available. Sky Sports shown. It's a GK pub with only IPA on at a reasonable £2.75 and in fairness it was very well kept despite not being a beer I would choose being given a choice. A functional if rather basic pub but one that clearly serves a useful function to the locals.