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Chat about:
Beer of the Week (w/e 27th April 2025) with Thuck Phat
on the Pub Forum
Detail Pages
Shirley Inn, Shirley, Croydon
Croydon
CR0 8BF
Pub Type
Orchid (Mitchells & Butlers)Reviews (Current Rating Average: 4 of 10) see review guidelines
David Walton left this review about Shirley Inn
Visited 09/07/24
After a flurry of visits in 2010, another one not visited for a long time. Physical description exactly as described by PSM below still, although I sense it had had a modest amount of tarting up over the intervening years. The “central bar” greets you as you enter through the front door. There are bare boards around the bar but otherwise carpetted venue. Darts area off to the right, otherwise lots of tables and chairs with quite a few TV’s all showing the footy or evening racing. Volume on the footy, no music here! Quite a large outdoor space out the back. Just a few locals my age and above in to watch the footy or just sit on their own with their thoughts and their pints staring out the windows.
No cask beer. Two hand pumps that had clips for Doom Bar and GK IPA were turned around - it didn’t look like they were just waiting a barrel change. Keg beers were Strongbow, Stella, Spitfire lager and bitter, Guinness, Carlsberg, Moretti, Carling, Aspall, Pravda, Cruz, Madri.
Not really one that has much to offer other than surviving to meet the needs of its locals. The Crown up the road is much the better option if you are in this part of Croydon and in need of a pit stop before seeking out other watering holes.
On 10th July 2024
- rating: 4
[User has posted 631 recommendations about 631 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Pub SignMan left this review about Shirley Inn
I'd always felt that this place was nothing more than a typical suburban, lager drinker's pub - packed out for the football each weekend, but otherwise just about getting by thanks to a few regular locals. My recent venture inside did very little to disprove this theory.
The pub has a central bar with what appears to once have been two rooms, now opened up into one large space. Seating is plentiful, whether it be in the front window area, or to the rear where high tables and stools mix with leather sofas in a jumbled mix of seating options. There is a passage that runs behind the bar along the side of the pub from the front room, past the toilets, to a small beer patio out the back.The bar had a few hand pumps, at first seemingly all out of action, but a walk around to the rear portion of the bar revealed a Spitfire clip, so I braved a pint (£2.40) and found it to be in surprisingly good condition. The staff were slow and for the most part, pretty unfriendly as well.
Football and horse racing was being shown on three screens and, as expected, there was a decent crowd sat around watching it. I grabbed a seat at the rear of the back room and was surprised to see the state of disrepair evident, with the walls in particular in a sorry condition. This detracted somewhat from the nice original features that have survived previous refurbishments, such as the tiled fireplace on the back wall, although I doubt the regulars care too much about such things.
Not a visit I enjoyed and not a place I would want to return to.
On 27th October 2010
- rating: 3
[User has posted 3350 recommendations about 3350 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
john mcgraw left this review about Shirley Inn
Large old fashioned single bar pub that seems to have a fairly strong local following.Only Adnams Broadside on as a real ale on my visit.
On 9th June 2010
- rating: 5
[User has posted 2044 recommendations about 2025 pubs]