The Woodman, Carshalton

I visited the Woodman on Friday evening a couple of months ago and found a fairly busy L shaped pub. The bar is located at the front of the pub and couple of steps up to the right is a seating area that leads to a rear beer garden. The toilets are also located here and I had to tip toe through rivers of urine to get to the khazi – nice! There are plasma screens located throughout and during my visit a Football League review show courtesy of Sky Sports was being aired to the disinterested punters. Karaoke is advertised for every Thursday from 20:00 and DJ nights are hosted here at the weekends. The doors don’t open until noon every day and there is a late license until midnight on Tuesday and Wednesday and until 1am on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. There is also a sign in the door that states that entrance is not permitted after 22:30 so I would expect a lock in atmosphere. The bar is stocked with a standard draught selection alongside Amstel and the three hand pumps were drawing Bombardier, York Brewery’s Legacy and Castle Rock’s Diamond Reign. There are better pubs in the area so I’ll probably give this place a miss next time I’m in Carshalton.

I was in here for a very swift pint a couple of weeks ago. This pub is in a setting that appears quite rural, with the sun setting through the trees across from Carshalton Pond it should be quite idyllic. The ales were good, as mentioned by other reviewers, but on the Friday evening we were in I found the pop music to be unnecessarily loud and thus inhibiting conversation. But I suppose that’s a feature of pubs on a Friday evening. Nonetheless, I would give this pub another shot if I was in Carshalton during the daytime.

Little to add to PSM's extensive review.The view through the large picture windows over The Ponds is impressive,especially in sunny weather.Butchers hooks are situated on the exterior front wall above these picture windows but were obscured by bunting on my trip close to the Queen's diamond jubilee.The pub atmosphere was lively,and the muzak was turned up quite loud on this particular Friday evening,but the sight of two handpumps dispensing York Brewery and Castle Rock beers gladdened the heart. The third handpump was devoted to a regular in the unfortunate shape of Bombadier.I would give this pub another visit if I had more time in Carshalton ,given the ale selection ,good location and upbeat vibe.

The Woodman is an historic old pub next to All Saints Church, dating as far back as the 16th century when it used to be a butchers shop. The interior is quite dark and cosy with plenty of wooden beams and dark wood panelling, although some of the panelling seems to be newer and has been painted to fit in with the rest. The overall effect is quite nice and offset with muted lighting. The front half of the pub houses the servery and has a few standard tables and chairs, with the best ones being those in front of the windows, giving you a view out over Carshalton Ponds. Past the servery there are steps up to a flagstone floor lounge area which has been filled with sofas and comfy chairs. A large fireplace dominates the rear wall, or at least it would if it had not been mostly covered by a huge blackboard promoting various DJ nights. Such blackboards are everywhere you look, advertising live sport, cocktails, quiz nights and the like. Several TV screens were on showing coverage from the football league whilst a pretty good soundtrack played over the speaker system. I noticed that there is a garden to the rear, but I never got round to having a look at it. There were three beers available on my recent visit – Wells Bombardier, Moorhouse Black Cat (£3.60) and Robinson’s Enigma. I tried the Black Cat and found that it was well kept and an enjoyable pint. The barman was a cheerful bloke who seemed to have a good rapport with his customers and there was quite a nice atmosphere all round thanks to a good crowd of locals starting to fill the place up. I quite like the feel of this place and I always think it’s worth having a quick look to see if they have anything interesting on at the bar. There are of course better pubs in Carshalton, but this place always seems to be busy, so it’s clearly doing something right.