Ye Olde Red Lion, Sutton

A lovely-looking old pub lurking in a side street, a steady sort of place which has clearly developed a good food trade but is still very pubbish. The multi-roomed interior has lots of good wood fittings and panelling which thankfully has so far resisted the scourge of grey or green overpaint and still gives a warm and cosy feel. Three handpumps offered London Pride, Proper Job and Hobgoblin Gold.

Tucked away down a side street near the church and library, this is a 400 year old pub that has retained much of its multiple room layout. Stonegate can be a bit hit and miss when it comes to pub quality in my experience, but this must rank as one of their better efforts. You enter past a nice front patio which was proving very popular on a warm July afternoon, through some fine stained glass front doors bearing the image of a lion and the pub's name. Two U-shaped banquettes under the front windows offer the main seating options in the main bar area, which sees a central servery opposite the front door. To the right there is a huge fireplace with an old range and a stone elephant inside. Good wood panelling, some of which details the pub's golf society captains through the years, can be found here alongside some comfortable seating and a stack of board games. A passage to the right of the bar leads you down a bare boarded walkway where you will find a small, single table snug to the right. The passage turns to the left though, brining you into the rear bar, served by the same central servery and furnished in a relatively basic fashion, but notable for the great collection of historic photos of Cheam on the walls. From here, you can access the left hand room, which you can also reach from the front bar. This is a slightly larger space with plenty more seating, wood panelling and a TV screen which was airing the quiz show Pointless to nobody. How apt. There are nice fireplaces in both the left and rear rooms, although not quite on a par with the grand one to the right. A door to the left leads out to a very popular and pleasant looking beer garden with lots of decent furniture. Music played throughout my visit, but this was lost in the general din of what appeared to be a very popular Sunday afternoon session. There were lots of handpulls in operation, albeit dispensing national brands. Options were Youngs Ordinary, Hogs Back TEA, Black Sheep Bitter and Robinsons Dizzy Blonde, with Fullers London Pride and Greene King IPA due to come on later. My Dizzy Blonde was pint of the day and served to me by a chaotic but good-humoured barmaid who caused much hilarity by inadvertently implying that I was in a relationship with the bloke stood next to me at the bar (I think she was trying to ask if we were ordering our beers together!). This was by far the busiest pub I visited on a mini-crawl around Cheam and I would suggest that is simply because it is the best pub in Cheam. The pub has a nice rural feel to it, a good garden and a decent range of well kept ales and the locals seem to appreciate that winning combination. A good end to a nice summer's day out and my first port of call the next time I'm in the area.

This pub had a surprisingly good ale choice for its location – tucked away down a side street off Cheam High St. Young’s Bitter, Jenning’s Cumberland and Dorking Black were the offerings, with another pump apparently unused. The Cumberland (£2.95 a pint) went down very well indeed. This is a Stonegate pub, thus a standard glossy menu was on display offering the usual pub grub meal deals. There’s a print in the main bar proclaiming that the pub is 400 years old. Personally I take that with a pinch of salt, although I would not be surprised to learn that there had been a pub on the site for that long. The current bulding looks as if it has been extended in all directions, and now has a separate room on the left connected to the main bar by an archway. Both the doorway to the main bar, and to the bar on the left, boast some very attractive leaded light doors incorporating the name of the pub. There’s a load of other pub related decor, including a Red Lion Golf Society honours board next to the fireplace on the right, plus masses of black and white photographs of Old Cheam. This is a proper pub, and is one not to be missed on any crawl of Cheam.

Official site of Ye Olde Red Lion - www.yeolderedlioncheam.co.uk

Official site of Ye Olde Red Lion - www.yeolderedlioncheam.co.uk