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Pub Of The Month - October 2025 with ROBCamra
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Detail Pages
The Barrel Vault (JD Wetherspoon), N1
N1
N1C 4QL
Reviews (Current Rating Average: 6 of 10) see review guidelines
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Aqualung . left this review about The Barrel Vault (JD Wetherspoon)
I turned up here at around 08:00 on a Saturday morning with a 10:00 train booked into Kent. It's a fairly ugly modern room with an attempt to conceal the unfinished looking ceiling with some wooden barrels. The room isn't that large for a JDW and is roughly L shaped with the bar on the left if you enter from the station complex. Alcohol was being served before 09:00, probably because of a station licence. There was a fair crowd in including people travelling and some Neandethal football supporters. There seemed to be an older Irish bloke in charge who was running a very tight ship. As expected prices are high here with guest ales at £3.55, unlimited coffee £1.75 and Punk IPA at £4.79. There is a cut down food menu with most items being a pound or two dearer than the average but not necessarily compared to their other Central London outlets. On the plus side during their first month they were holding a 150 beer festival which did have some good options.
The bar has twelve hand pumps which had just one unused and Abbot with the rest being from the October festival. I went for the unlimited coffee this time.
I thought this was pretty good for a station bar and will return for a festival beer one morning before the month is out prior to heading off to Wanstead. I would use it again if booked on a mid morning train into Kent but probably for the coffee.
On 22nd October 2018
- rating: 7
[User has posted 2143 recommendations about 2143 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Delboy 20 left this review about The Barrel Vault (JD Wetherspoon)
Brand new Spoons well described below with a decent choice of beers as part of the latest festival. I can think of much worse places to kill time waiting for a train!
On 11th October 2018
- no rating submitted
[User has posted 1880 recommendations about 1749 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
hondo . left this review about The Barrel Vault (JD Wetherspoon)
It’s a WETHERSPOONS with minimal branding. Interior a bizarre spoons meets brewdog industrial mix. Does the job as part of a crawl or if time to kill before a train. Numerous security on duty during my visit.
On 4th October 2018
- no rating submitted
[User has posted 3026 recommendations about 2961 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Tris C left this review about The Barrel Vault (JD Wetherspoon)
This is only the ninth Wetherspoons that I’ve ever visited; I tend to avoid them as few are real pubs and this is no exception, even down to the deliberate lack of ‘spoons branding, presumably to foster a more upmarket image. It’s situated in the former clothing section of St. Pancras’ Marks & Sparks, me seated in roughly the area where I bought the boxer shorts that I was wearing. Opened on 1st October, the name is influenced by the station’s former undercroft’s use; it is now home to some quite swanky shops, but was originally used to store beer barrels freighted in from Burton-on-Trent, the barrels’ dimensions determining the height and distance between the metal columns.
Once inside, the only clue that this is a ‘spoons are the four unattractive flashing games machines. Otherwise, it looks like any old modern station bar. On high, there’s a ceiling so bedecked with ductwork that it resembles an oilrig; conventional lamps along with wooden barrels hang from it. Beneath a tubular steel gantry, the marble-topped bar sweeps around much of the left-hand side and sports 12 different pumps; the bar’s front is decorated with herringbone slats of differing brown hues. The floor features a patterned tiled bar apron with the remainder laid in a combination of large ceramic tiles and wood laminate, all of which contributes to rather poor acoustics.
Furniture is modern with leatherette opposing bench seats in semi-booths to the outer periphery, which look out onto limited pavement seating, delineated from the remainder of the pavement by planters. The centre of the interior features exclusively tall furniture with small rectangular tables along with some quite small circular steel tables without seating and all quite close together. Customers would seem to be drawn from rail travellers rather than the usual ‘spoons clients, but I expect they’ll turf up once word gets out.
Ales: as mentioned, 12 including at least one mild with a suitably appropriate choice of Burton Bridge Brewery’s Burton Ale coming in at a very appealing £3.45-pint, in decent nick but not the most adventurous of choices, the result of other ales seemingly existing in pump only which shouldn’t have happened on opening day. Another nod to this outlet distinguishing itself from its brethren is that payment is taken after and not before your pint is drawn.
This isn’t a bad place if you like railway station bars and can’t survive without beer, but it's not what I'd call a pub and I was rather put off by the security guard patrolling the interior. Also, the lavs are small by ‘spoons standards, but then this isn’t really a ‘spoons – or is it?
On 2nd October 2018
- rating: 3
[User has posted 2283 recommendations about 2232 pubs]