The Cardinal Peppe, North Kingston, Kingston Upon Thames

Official site of The Cardinal Peppe - peppekingston.com

Facebook page of The Cardinal Peppe - www.facebook.com

Official site of The Cardinal Peppe - peppekingston.com

Facebook page of The Cardinal Peppe - www.facebook.com

This one has now reverted to its previous name of The Cardinal, following a short spell as The Tudor rose. It seems to be a bit more upmarket than it was as The Tudor Rose, and if anything is a bit nicer. Unusually, and uniquely in my experience, all the ancient and good quality solid wood furnishings had "for sale" labels, with prices, tied to them. Again uniquely for me, I spotted an antique old self playing robot piano tucked away against one of the walls. Free wi-fi is advertised, and there's a garden out at the back. But perhaps more importantly, all three handpumps were in operation, dispensing London Pride, Hardy & Hanson Rockin' Rudolph, and Hook norton Lion (£1.80 a half). I didn't see a menu in the pub, but signs outside the pub advertised fresh baguettes, pizze and burgers. I think Enterprise have improved this pub with its latest incarnation, and i wouldn't mind visiting again.

Enterprise Inns have for some reason decided to change the name of this pub from The Cardinal to the Tudor Rose. Anyway, this is a large stand-alone inter-war pub. There are still three distinct drinking areas wrapped like a ribbon around the servery, all inter-connected by breaks in what would have been solid walls at some stage. One of said wall remnants has a see-through fireplace in it, with previous use shown by scorch marks on the floorboards. The first room (on the left) has mainly sofas and bucket armchairs; the next room (a must visit room as this is where the handpumps are) has a handful of normal tables and chairs; and the last room (another must visit room as the doors to the toilets are in here) has ugly looking black plastic chairs with solid chunky tables. There’s a TV on the wall, and nothing else. This is one of the most stark and uninspiring rooms I’ve seen in a pub. There are a handful of pictures on the walls in the other rooms, but far too much empty space for my liking. Any Asian decor seems to have gone. There's a good amount of outside seating, both in a garden at the back and a few tables at the front. There's even some customers' car parking. The middle room has three handpumps, but only one in use, dishing out London Pride at £3.20 a pint. I didn’t see a menu, but they do food (I was in on Wednesday lunchtime) as I heard some other customers ordering steak and kidney pudding. That most certainly qualifies as pub grub. I saw a couple of signs advertising Sunday roasts, at reasonable enough prices as I recall. I thought this pub was fairly cold and charmless - a carpet would be a great improvement. But the landlord was friendly and chatty, and as at least a couple of the nearest pubs have gone to the wall I'm glad this one is still a going concern. This pub has the the potential to be a really nice pub, but that would need Enterprise to spend some money on it. Of course they may have spent some money in the transformation to the Tudor Rose, but I can't see that it is money well spent.