The Capitol (JD Wetherspoon), Forest Hill, SE23

This impressive building began life as a music hall before being variously used as a theatre, cinema and bingo hall. It's now a Wetherspoons pub and as is often the case with this chain, a lot of the original features have been retained, so that it does actually feel like you're drinking in an old theatre. The facade alone is striking enough, but the interior is worth a look as well. You enter in to what would have been the lobby area, where there is, rather confusingly, a short stretch of bar counter where I expect the ticket office may have once been, which was shut on my visit. Steps lead up to the upper stalls - now a raised seating area with some very high backed leather banquettes and plenty of normal tables and chairs. The room then opens out to a large, lower stalls space, with the servery at the rear where the stage would have once been. The proscenium arch can still be glimpsed in places and there are two doors either side of the servery which have elaborate decorations and light fixtures above them. This part of the room is a large arc shaped area, with loads of seating, including more of the leather banquettes. By turning your back to the bar you can look up to the balcony which is adorned with twelve sculpted heads. A few pictures line the walls depicting scenes from old movies and there were the usual TV screens showing muted 24 hour news coverage. A door on the right hand wall leads out to a rather drab looking smoking area. There are ten hand pumps, five of which had beers from the current festival, with three more offering festival ciders, whilst the other two had the regulars of Abbot Ale and Ruddles. I tried two of the festival beers and thought they were in pretty good shape, although the barman who served me was pretty surly. I'm quite a big fan of these sorts of interesting Wetherspoons conversions and enjoyed spending a bit of time in here taking it all in. The large open spaces do seem to dampen the atmosphere somewhat but there were enough plus points to make me leave with a favourable impression.

Randomness Guide to London - Capitol entry

Randomness Guide to London - Capitol entry

This former cinema looks imposing enough from the street, but once inside the grand 1920s interior is really something to behold. Plenty of seating on two levels in the upper and lower stalls, but the bar looks slightly out of place because it is in front of the stage and below the natural eye level for such a building. Went at a quiet time so the atmosphere was rather cavernous with large spaces between each group of customers. Ten handpumps in two banks of five, one with the usual suspects and the other with some more interesting beers. These included two from Weltons of Horsham, both with the usual creative pump clip designs, and at £1.89 my pint of Moat Man (having a dig at the infamous MP Douglas Hogg) was good value.

Large spacious open-plan Wetherspoon's that has been converted from an old cinema. Not much in the way of real ales but at least "Old Rosie" cider is on tap