The High Cross, Tottenham, N17

Visited 02/07/25 No cask. Extensive keg offering of Deya Steady Rolling Man, Pressure Drop Ja session IPA, Siren Soundwave IPA, Pillars Pilsner, Pagan Juice hazy pale from Bluntrock Brewery, London Stout from The Kernel, a Belgian sour Gueuze Boon, Umbrella apple cider and Flensburger lager. This is a small craft beer emporium in a former public convenience. It is bare boarded, with the same wainscotting and a cream tiling in the upper part of the venue. The bar counter is in the corner by the entrance and there is a drinking ledge with tall stools down the left-hand wall with tall stools, banquettes in the rear corner and serving regular tables with small stools the other side thereof. A couple of small TV's were showing French open tennis sans commentary, the sound provided by a low-key smooth soundtrack. There are some picnic benches outside on a busy road junction. Pleasant and different venue that was enjoyable on a quiet mid-Monday evening visit.

Conversion of the former public conveniences dating from the 1920s, so not an ideal layout when very busy on match days. That said, throughput of customers was well organised and the wait wasn't too painful. All the seats inside were taken or reserved for those eating, but there is a compact beer garden on the side of the monument that gives the place its name. Interesting selection of ten craft keg beers on tap, including my Never End from Two Flints (£7.80).

Founded in 2018, this place takes its name from some neo-Gothic stone thing surrounded by wrought iron railings, at a road junction just to the south; the presence of Ladies and Gentlemen signs are a clear indication that this was once a public convenience, but as a bar it’s anything but bog standard. The interior is tastefully trendy; you can do a tour on Google. Understandably though, it’s absolutely tiny with a bar-ette at the end; smooth sounds played over the stereo, but otherwise there’s no electronic entertainment. Customers were young and trendy, making for a good atmosphere on my Thursday visit. On the minus side, illumination is low, meaning that I couldn’t read the unlit fisheyes, just about making out the Siren logo, which turned out to be their IPA, served by a friendly barmaid and at a reasonable – for ‘craft’ – £3.10 a half, for this is a house of keggery, the lack of cask meaning that this doesn’t qualify as a micropub; it tasted like every other beer of this type. I’m not a fan of bar conversions, almost exclusively eschewing them in favour of traditional purpose-built pubs, which also helps keep them afloat. But this is a great little place and if I could be guaranteed a table to cater for myself and a couple of friends, I could quite easily spend an evening here. However, the lack of cask means that for me it shall remain forever a curiosity, which I’m unlikely to revisit.

This is a great little conversion to a bar. Barmaid assumed by the look of me that i would like the 4.0 lager she recommended to me before i even got to the bar. Wrong ,i went for an imperial stout.I was just about to ask someone where the toilets were when i thought this place is tiny,surely i can find them myself.It took me two circuits of the pub before i found them just behind the front door.

Just over the road from Tottenham’s distinctive High Cross, from which it takes its name, this is a quirky little craft beer bar set in a former public toilet block. The Ladies and Gents have been knocked through to create a narrow but wide single room with bare floorboards, white tile walls and small clear windows with drawn curtains. The left side of the room has hard backed benches and standard chairs around the rear corner under high shelves that are stacked full of boxes of crisps. A drinking ledge with some high stools follows part of the front wall which has been covered with some nice old framed postcards of Tottenham’s former attractions. There’s also a small TV screen here, but this was switched off on a match day afternoon, so it’s unclear if they ever actually show any live sport on it. A very small and simple servery has been squeezed into the rear right corner with a basic wooden counter and white tile bar back. Annoyingly, there is no beer board, so you have to inspect the taps yourself, which was easier said than done with a heaving pre-match crowd in attendance. A glance out of one of the small windows revealed some very limited seating options out to the rear of the building and plenty of customers were standing down both sides of the pub too, all with plastic pint glasses in hand. Match day pies are available, and they offer a daily selection of pricy bar snacks too (scotch egg - £5.00). Music was playing somewhere in the background, but this was easily lost under the chatter of a packed room, although I somehow managed to time my visit perfectly, getting served as soon as I reached the bar. I counted ten keg taps in total, some mounted on the bar counter, others on the bar back, so be sure to check them all. A lot of the usual names were present and correct, including Beavertown and Siren, although I plumped for the Kernel Pale Ale, which turned out to be a rather upsetting £5.90 a pint. This is definitely a quirky, unusual pub that is fun to take unsuspecting friends along to, although perhaps the most unexpected thing would be having to fork out nearly six quid for a pint of beer in Tottenham. I don’t doubt that I didn’t see this place at its best with the busy pre-football crowds in attendance, but it felt like a novelty place rather than a credible bar and as such would only really merit inclusion on a wider pub crawl.