The New Town, Sutton

This pub retains a separate public and saloon/lounge format but on my Friday afternoon visit the split-level lounge room was closed and in darkness. The public bar in contrast was busy and rather boisterous with a very blokey and rather territorial and testosterone fuelled feel. The closed off room looked pretty comfortable, but the bar was very spartan and basic with nothing in the way of decor apart from posters advertising forthcoming live games plus one offering vodka shots with Skittles sweets(?). Tvs were showing old Premier League reruns of Man Utd games. A rear room off the bar has a pool table and a dartboard. A nice looking old building with large arched windows, but sadly it feels these days like it serves the very lowest common denominator as regards customers. It's a Youngs pub. only Ordinary Bitter and Special on, the Ordinary was fine once I had dragged the barmaid back in from her smoke to serve me. Obviously popular with a certain demographic group and possibly better when the best room is open but I found this place to be one of those where you drink up quickly and leave.

Official New Town page at the Youngs site - www.youngs.co.uk

Official New Town page at the Youngs site - www.youngs.co.uk

This is another Young’s pub in this area, also with Special and Bitter on. The Bitter was £3.00 a pint, which is just about OK for London. This is quite an unusual pub, still retaining its multi-room format. The door on the corner takes you into what must be regarded as the public bar. There are a few tables and chairs in here, plus the inevitable TV screen, and behind the bar a heated container containing Pukka pies. This bar was crowded during my visit with drinkers watching the Man U v Liverpool game, but spying an empty saloon bar the other side of the bar I made my way round to it. This took me through a small room containing a pool table and a “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” pinball machine. Continuing past the toilets took me into saloon bar territory, rather bizarrely split into three rooms on different levels. You can see through a clear glass panel into a basement level room, and above it into a mezzanine level room. The pub has recently been refurbished and the smell of fresh decoration still lingering around the place. Whereas the public bar is very basic (as is traditional), the saloon bar(s) are sumptuously furnished with normal tables, banquettes, normal size wooden “carver” style armchairs as well as a couple of large leather armchairs. Various prints and other decor grace this area, including some half barrels high up on the wall, as well as an old sign for the New-Town Hotel Saloon Lounge entrance. The contrast between the two bars couldn’t have been more acute. It would be interesting to see whether the customer base is more varied at a busier time, or whether this really is a “public bar” type of pub, as suggested by my brief visit. The only TVs are in the public bar so that was probably the driving force on Sunday afternoon. Nonetheless, I enjoyed my brief visit and would be happy to visit again.