The Nightingale, Sutton

A single room winding around either side of the central bar. Comfortable, it is carpeted and the tables have imitation roses and small candles on them. Decor includes lots of brass and copper artifacts, many being plates, and jugs and steins hang from a beam and are lined up on high shelves. Additionally there is a fish tank to the rear right, bar billiards to the rear left, and colourful globe lights hanging over the bar, competing for attention with the ceiling fans. Five handpumps offered a choice of Pride, Youngs Bitter and Timothy Taylors Landlord. The Landlord was a decent drop at £3.20. Wednesday night is curry night, a free bowl with your first drink until it runs out! Live music advertised some evenings and Sunday afternoons. The TVs were on, muted, showing some news programme while unfortunately the commercial radio station Absolute Radio played. Nothing against the station, I'd just rather not listen to radio adverts in the pub.

There were five handpumps on display – three clipped as London Pride, and the other two as Young’s Bitter. The young’s was fine, and at £3.20 a pint. Being Sunday lunchtime there were cheese and biscuits on the bar, a tradition that is good to see still alive in this part of the world. This is a fairly traditional pub by the look of it. It’s nicely carpeted, and furnishings are banquettes, normal metal framed tables, standard chairs, and small round stools. All the tables had on them a small vase containing some fake red roses. There was no sign of any food, other than the freebie nibbles on the bar, and a nut dispensing machine also on the bar counter. There’s only one smallish room, with a pool table to the left of the bar counter, and seating in front, and to the right and back of it. At the front, on the right by the big bay window there is a slightly raised area surrounded by a balustrade, which is undoubtedly used for the live music that I saw advertised on a chalkboard. There is also a pull down screen above this raised area, no doubt used for sporting events, but it wasn’t deployed during my visit although the Man U v Liverpool game was being broadcast. There are shelves at the top of the walls containing vases, stone hot water bottles, copper ornaments and the like, and the beams in the middle of the room sported some brass plates as well as assorted jugs hanging from them. Overall I found this pub to be clean and tidy, and it looks as if some effort has been made to make the interior attractive and welcoming. It’s a bit of a shame about the unimaginative ale selection, but nonetheless I would be happy to pay a return visit.