The Norbury, Norbury, SW16

Official sit of the Norbury - www.thenorbury.com

Official sit of the Norbury - www.thenorbury.com

The Norbury is a large pub and nightclub at the top end of London Road. Entering the pub past a particularly unappealing looking outdoor decked area, you find yourself in a huge room with the servery in the middle and raised areas to either side. A row of banquette seating separates the bar from the entrance and further banquette, tub chair and sofa seating is available on each of the raised areas, with drinking ledges and high stools making up the remaining seating options. Modern art prints are sporadically positioned on the otherwise bare walls and there are some odd life-size figurines of Elvis and the Blues Brothers which seem a bit out of place. I spotted one nice little old fireplace on the right hand wall, but otherwise the room is utterly devoid of any character and feels like a typical town centre drinking barn. TV screens were on showing various sports channels and music of the extremely up-tempo variety was blasting out of the sound system on my Sunday afternoon visit. I think I spotted a pool table although my notes don’t make mention of this and I’m told that there is also a Nintendo Wii available. The pub becomes the Edge Nightclub on Friday and Saturday evenings, although it seems that there is a separate room for this to the left of the main entrance. The exterior of the pub has a large Guinness Time advert on it and stepping inside, the eye is caught by various Guinness adverts and a mirror behind the bar. Given that there is no ale available, I thought the Guinness must be worth a try and I managed to get a half decent drop for £3.50. I’m sure there are plenty of locals who appreciate this place and given the lack of competition in the area, it’s not much of a surprise to find it doing well, but I personally found it an entirely soulless place and an experience I’m not keen to repeat.