The White Lion, Warlingham

This pub is on the corner of a dead end road within a network of residential backstreets so it does not get any passing trade of note. In fact for the last three years I have lived a five minute walk away and only discovered its existence from this website. There are three rooms with the bar area being in the front along with a DJ booth and a couple of plasma screens that were showing R and B videos on a music channel. There are advertisements for Sky Sports in the window so they do show the football when it is on. To the left of the bar there is a room that houses a pool table and there is another smaller room to the rear of the pub that has a dartboard and some extra seating. There is a garden out the back, but it looked more like a building site so I’m not sure that it would ever be used. There are some picnic tables out the front though and these are covered by a couple of large umbrellas. There is also a tiered concrete garden area to the left of the pub that has some graffiti covering it, but I think that this may be council property rather than the pubs. The barmaid seemed nice enough, but my Guinness had a huge head and it wasn’t of the best quality. There is no real ale and not much more draught as only Fosters, Stella and Mcewans were also available. The signs in the window advertised Karaoke and a disco on Friday and Saturday nights and free pool on Mondays and poker on Wednesdays. There were also various music nights advertised throughout the month. Children are welcome and roast dinners are served on Sundays at £4 a head for adults and £2.50 for children which is the cheapest I have seen for a long time – Maybe some would question the quality of such cheap food, but I didn’t see it so cannot comment. My view of this pub after my first and probably last visit is that it is an estate pub for a younger crowd.

The brewing industry is never one to hold back when it comes to committing crimes of vandalism, and the deed done here was pretty monstrous. For reasons which defy rational explanation M&B took a much loved historic 15th century building and, riding roughshod aver a vociferous local campaign bastardized it into an Ember Inn. Ignoring the new and wholly pointless extension at the back, the floor plan remains much the same, several smallish rooms at the front deriving form the row of cottages that were incorporated over the centuries and various fascination nooks and crannies. However they've done their utmost to remove all atmosphere from the place. Wood panelling painted over in daft pastel shades, the ancient beams boxed in with formica, the old wobbly furniture replaced by MFI stuff. This used to be a destination pub, there are few such traditional inns this close to London. All that has been thrown away thanks to short-term corporate greed.