The Grosvenor, Hanwell, W7

According to the plinths at the end of the grand building, this pub was built in 1904 and despite some obvious alterations over the years, it still retains a fair bit of historic interest for today's visitor. A corner entrance takes you into a bare boarded room which has clearly been opened out from a multiple room layout, but with some elements of partitioning retained to allow for a two bar set-up. The pub is served by a large horseshoe-shaped central bar with a beautiful curved U-shaped counter which has recessed frontage and a nice polished top. The bar back is a high quality dark wood affair boasting an integral clock and a smart archway through to a back room. The bar area has been fitted with benches, banquettes, chairs and a single sofa, all of which stand under the fine windows which have the pub's name picked out on them. Through the partitioning screen to the left, which has nice stained glass panes to either side that nicely compliment those above the main windows, there is a snug of sorts which was presumably much more snug in appearance before the pub was opened out. Beyond the snug, there is a large dining room in the left hand side of the pub with attractive high panelling, a nice fireplace, a stack of board games and various old paintings on show. Meanwhile, to the rear right there is what appears to be a formal dining area with pre-set tables, more dark wood panels and lots of photos and paintings on display. I didn't notice a beer garden, although apparently there is one, but I did spot a number of benches along the pavement at the front of the pub. Music played at a reasonable volume throughout my visit and whilst there was a fairly small number of customers in on this visit, I can imagine the lack of soft furnishings make this a very noisy pub during peak hours. The pub has been a local CAMRA branch winner in recent years and there was a decent range of cask ale available on this visit, with hand pumps supporting Sharps Doom Bar, Trumans Swift, Aylesbury Brewhouse Co Horton, Sambrooks Four Chimneys, Vale VPA, Adnams Lighthouse and Twickenham Winter Star. Around twelve or so craft keg options were also available from the likes of Sambrooks, Camden, Weird Beard and Purity. I had a pint of the VPA, a little pricey at £4.20, but in decent enough condition. This pub's location down seemingly endless suburban backstreets between Hanwell and West Ealing, means a bit of effort is required to get out here, but I'm glad I took the time to visit as this is a grand pub with good beer and an interesting interior. It may suffer a little from the very notable dining side of the business, but efforts have clearly been made to accommodate drinkers as well and I would imagine this is one of the better pubs around.

You can see from the photographs that this is a quite magnificent looking pub. Designed by the prolific West London architect, Thomas Nowell Parr, it still retains several of his trademark design features such as the coloured glass glazing in the upper parts of the windows, and wooden baton beams on the ceilings. Some internal screening also survives here, notably between what would once have been the jug and bottle bar and the snug bar, if the sign on the screening can believed. The tapered forward bar counter looks original as well. But of course the pub's now been largely opened up. The main bar area is on the right; there's another room through the screening mentioned previously; and a third area at the back on the right with the inevitable tables all laid for diners. At the back of that room is a doorway out to the small smoking area. The furnishings are mainly normal tables and chairs, but of course with some some sofas in the bar on the left. Both the bar on the left and the "main" bar have their own set of handpumps, but one has to look at them all to see everything on offer. When I was in on Saturday they had on London Pride, Cornish Coaster and Lazarus from Sharps, and a couple form a local micro-brewery called Weird Beard. Quite approriate as I was on a CAMRA pub crawl. The Weird Beard ales were Little Things, which was an unfined (and thus cloudy) 3% hoppy ale, which the bar staff helpfully pointed out is supposed to be cloudy, and Hit the Lights, a stonkingly full of flavour 5.7% ale that I thoroughly enjoyed. Despite the gastro features - dedicated dining room - this struck me as a decent enough pub, which is large enough to accommodate dining and drinking areas. I would be happy to visit again.