The Welcome Inn, Thornton Heath

This L shaped pub on a busy street corner, a five or so minute walk north from Thornton Heath train station, looks like it has undergone a fairly modest refurb in recent times. The pine floorboards and artexed walls and ceiling with their fake dark wood beams all look vaguely new, although this is unfortunately not enough to give the place anything other than a down at the heel feeling. The pub is quite open with seating around the perimeter mainly in the shape of benches and low stools. Numerous screens were on showing different horse racing channels and there are betting slips stacked at the end of the bar counter, which probably tells you a lot about the type of customer they’re aiming for. The servery is a little odd, with a tiled roof over the top of it for no apparant reason. As the pub narrows to the left rear, there is less room for tables, so the area has a few bar stools along a drinking ledge as well as a dartboard on the back wall. The pub is sparsely decorated with a few bits of brewerania on high shelves and the odd advert for the likes of Guinness or Bovril. There was just the one ale to try – a rather uninspiring choice of Greene King IPA which I gave a try and found was better than anticipated although still hardly in great shape. The pub seems to have a lot of Irish customers, so maybe I’d have been better off trying the Guinness instead. I can’t say that the Welcome Inn was all that welcoming, but it seemed like a fairly popular pub that meets the needs of its locals but fails to provide any kind of incentive for anyone else to try it out.