The Anchor, Battersea, SW11

Facebook page of The Anchor - www.facebook.com

Official site of The Anchor - www.craftunionpubs.com

It’s difficult to date this pub; it could be Victorian or perhaps rebuilt when the estate went up. It closed around 2023 to reopen in late 2024 under the stewardship of Craft Union. With a sign expressly banning the wearing of sports’ wear, the exterior is now quite smart; it’s a decent looking pub compared to most estate-style pubs. There’s occluded glass, through which you can’t fail to see Six Nations flag nonsense, the glass not sufficiently occluded to shield the visitor from pulsing red, green and blue lights and multiple sports’ TVs at the time of my Saturday 8.20pm visit. There’s a bouncer then darts and pool, an eclectic mix of local customers, the place doing good business. I didn’t take to the place however and given the ambience, decided not to stay for a drink.

Facebook page of The Anchor - www.facebook.com

Official site of The Anchor - www.craftunionpubs.com

This former two bar estate pub has now been knocked through into one internal space around the central large square serving area, but it still retains the feel of being an Irish back street local. Eclectic mix of clientele when I visited which I put down to the Anchor being the only traditional pub experience for a sizeable chunk of this part of the Battersea Thames path which has undergone serious regeneration in recent years. And on this fine weather weekday afternoon office workers from the nearby completed glass palaces mingled with local old boys and a serious amount of builders obviously working on the glass palaces yet to be completed. Although one internal space now it still feels like two different ends of the pub, both with large flat screens and the northern end has a photo and memorabilia homage display to Chelsea FC, the centre piece of which looks like a genuine Stamford Bridge SW6 road sign. As well as copious chrome draft pumps with the usual Lager and Guinness suspects there are two ale hand pumps, one on each end of the bar, meaning you have to walk round the entire bar length to see what on. Sambrook’s Wandle and Doombar were on for my visit but frankly neither of these was up to much and I got the impression that this place moves a lot more lager than it does ale. Not a destination pub by any means but scores by being the only traditional offering for quite a distance on this south bank side of the Battersea section of the Thames path.

Just called into The Anchor Pub last night, had heard it was under new management and has recently been refurbished. I was very surprised..it is now a cosy, welcoming bar with very relaxing atmosphere. Am delighted to say this will now be my new local, staff were great. Looking forward to spending a few relaxed evenings here. Good luck to the new governor and well done on taking "The Anchor" out of the stone ages!!

This is a backstreet locals’ pub a short walk from Clapham Junction station. It’s still a two-room pub, with no connection between the separate rooms other than via the street. The rooms looked fairly similar to me – carpeted, banquettes, normal tables, small stools – although I suspect that the bar in which I spent my visit was effectively the Public Bar as it contained the dartboard. This room had some trophies on display on the wall by the dartboard, plus some framed nautical knots and cheap-looking hunting prints on the wall. There was also a large TV on the wall, but switched off during my midweek lunchtime visit. A selection of slogans graced the bar counter – such as “there are no strangers here, just friends you’ve yet to meet”. My favourite was “no takeway’s allowed in here – chinese, pizza’s ect”. There was no real ale, just standard lagers, and keg Courage Best and John Smith’s. There was no sign of any food or menus, at least in the “public” bar. This struck me as a friendly, clean and well looked after pub. A decent ale would improve it no end.