The Park, West Norwood, SE27

The Park is as the name suggests opposite a park. Once inside there is a single L shaped room with the bar facing,the room is carpeted and the seating normal tables and chairs and a leather settee to the rear left,there was a TV behind the bar showing the Norwich v Sunderland game and a real fire on the go to the right. There was only one real ale on the which was Doom Bar which was well below par for this beer. The pub was almost empty on my Saturday dinner visit. Noting special about this pub,but in my attempt to do all pubs in West Norwood it had to be done. Pub visited 16/4/2016

This was originally the Park Tavern, now truncated to just The Park. It's opposite Norwood Park. Now completely opened up inside, with some standard modern embellishments such as decorative twigs, wickerwork hampers in a stack in the fireplace, and an aspidistra or two. There are the mandatory dark upholstered sofas, but the majority of furnishings are normal tables and chairs with no tall tables/tall stools (other than the traditional stools at the bar). The floor's bare-boarded of course, and the bar counter facing and bar back are light wood modern additions by the look of them. There was just the one ale on - Sharp's Doom Bar (£1.70 a half) with a second handpump having an Adnam's clip reversed. When I was in at Wednesday lunchtime I didn't see any sign of the pizze mentioned by a previous reviewer, nor were there any menus on the tables, but I did see one lady order a sandwich at the bar so obviously they do some food. It would probably be a good idea to advertise it. My visit coincided with a music appreciation society meeting in an upstairs room, with a number of elderly people congregating in the bar. I reckon it's good to see pubs encouraging their use for these sort of activities as it must surely bring in some revenue to aid their viability. But overall I found this to be a fairly standard pub. There's no original pub character or features that I could see, and the ale selection is hardly inspiring. But it did have some real ale on that was in reasonable nick. There's nothing really wrong with this pub, but I don't expect to visit again especially as I don't live locally.