The Old Crown, Leatherhead

Occupying a prominent street corner position at the northern end of the High Street is The Old Crown, a large imposing brick building with a curved frontage. High up above our heads, we see, in two separate places, fine tiling advertising Hodgsons Ales and Stout, a long gone brewery ( even before my time !) from Kingston – upon – Thames. The pub was obviously larger in those days as one of the sets of tiling is now, somewhat incongruously positioned over part of the building which is now a nail bar. A fine porticoed entrance unfortunately leads us into a bare boarded charmless modernised interior and a bar dominated by lager and keg fonts. Probably because there were 3 TV screens showing the Spurs v Everton game, the pub had something of a sports bar feel to it. It quickly became clear that this is where the local “yoof” drink and that I was probably the oldest person in. I retreated to the large outside garden at the rear where there’s a couple of odd stone statuettes of knights presiding over you while you sup. There’s 3 pumps, but, on my visit, only a rather moderate London Pride - £ 3.00p – was on. I can’t imagine there’sc much real ale trade in here at all. You’ll probably want to give this one a miss – as indeed I will next time