The Bluecoats, Tottenham, N17

This is a large old-school boozer that has been given a bit of a makeover and a new lease of life just in time for the opening of Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium, just a short walk away. As a pub for a pre-match drink, it’s pretty ideal, with the large open spaces, especially around the bar area, able to cope with the large short-term influx of customers. The pub is split into front and rear rooms, both of which have been partly opened out, although a section of partitioning wall keeps them apart and distinctive from one another. The front section is a reasonable seating area with sofas and metal frame chairs serving a mix of tables under bare brick and white painted walls. An old pub sign is displayed on one of the walls along with TV screens inevitably showing the afternoon’s early kick-off, plus a sign for the Army School of Physical Training, which I believe is in Aldershot, so it’s unclear how and why their sign ended up on the wall here. The rear section is a very dark, gloomy space with the servery along the back wall and some more metal framed chairs opposite. The bar has an old dark wood counter and bare brick bar back which is hidden behind a large beer board and a Bluecoats School for Girls mirror. Supplementary seating can be found down the right- hand side of the pub, through the area which connect the front and rear sections. A huge pull-down screen dominated the rear right corner here, again showing the day’s big football fixture. Spiral stairs lead you up to the toilets and a long dining room/overspill seating area, with benches and chairs arranged in rows and, on this visit at least, a bloke lying down fast asleep (or perhaps dead) on one of the benches. Some great old 70’s and 80’s tunes were blasting out, which seemed to fit well with the pub’s mainly middle-aged customer base – for those less enthused, a small concrete garden to the front left, fully screened off from the street, offered additional canteen bench seating. There are four handpulls on the bar – annoyingly all out of beer when I arrived half an hour or so ahead of kick-off – but the keg range was more than able to compensate, offering a good range of mainstream and craft beers from the likes of Beavertown, Redemption, 40Ft Brewing and One Mile End, as well as a cider from Umbrella Brewing. I tried the Signature Brew Roadie (either 4.3% or 5.5% depending on whether you believe the beer board or handwritten keg insert. It was a good pint, served up by one of the friendly and attentive bar staff who ensured the queues never got out of hand and kept everything ticking along nicely. I liked this place and thought it worked well as a football pub but could also be a decent place to stop off at on a quieter day. The beer range was as good as in some of the local craft beer bars and with the addition of some cask ale, could be a real winner. I’d definitely come back here again next season and hope it gets the support it needs outside of the match-day cycle.

Big one roomed pub with brick,wood and high ceilings.Nice outside space to the front.Two cask beers from Redemption and One Mile End.Tried 2 keg beers and both lovely and reasonably priced.Met a couple who recommended two local pubs but even Al would have avoided them.Dont trust the locals.

The old Pride of Tottenham is no more and trust me there will not be many crying over that. In its place is now a new impressive makeover to a cask and craft pub which now takes its name from the Girls school this building originally housed when it was built in 1835. This was my first visit after it reopened in May this year and have to say I was quite impressed. It’s now a modern interior that tends to the gastro model of decor with the majority of the pub space set to tables with lots of stripped back exposed brick walls, wooden floors and light grey walls. But then the main bar area is darker and is dominated by the dark mahogany seven-meter-long bar holding the 20 beer taps/pumps the pub now boasts, with a large chalk board stretching along the wall behind the bar detailing what’s on the 4 Ale pumps and 16 beer taps. This section also boasts some beautiful Bluecoats school pub mirrors in blue and gold that look old, but I guess they must have been commissioned for the makeover. As well as the internal spaces on the ground floor there is a pleasant suntrap beer garden that is screened from the traffic on the High Road by a jungle of plants and then there is an additional bright conservatory type room on the second floor that did not seem to be in use for my early Saturday evening visit. The bar supports four ale pumps but for my visit only two of these were in operation and as I had visited during the One Mile End (now brewing in the old Redemption facilities) take over week these were dispensing One Mile End’s Dockers Delight and Hospital Porter (well kept). Six of the Keg taps have the usual draught Lager, Cider and Guinness offerings to probably appease the footy crowd this pub will invariably attract when Spurs actually start playing in their new stadium. But the other 10 were dispensing modern craft beers with a heavy emphasis on local brewers. For example, there were four from One Mile End, a couple from Beavertown and then one each from Portabello, Pressure Drop, Brew by Numbers and Siren.

Official site of The Bluecoats - www.thebluecoatspub.com

Official site of The Bluecoats - www.thebluecoatspub.com