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Submitted on Thursday, 10^th April 2025
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Elephant & Castle, Kensington, W8

40 Holland Street
W8
W8 4LT

Correct details

Pub Type

Nicholsons (Mitchells & Butlers)

Served areas

Kensington

Tweets by Elephant & Castle

Elephant and Castle It's that time of the year again! Come by @E_CKensington on Sat 5th May 12pm -4pm for our first BBQ of the year!… https://t.co/U3WM7JTEN1 6:09 PM Apr 27th 2018 from Twitter for Android

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Reviews of Elephant & Castle (Average Rating: 6½ of 10) Add Review see review guidelines

Will Larter left this review about Elephant & Castle

Apart from the beer prices, I didn't notice anything particularly "smart" about this Nicholson's pub, but it certainly smarted to part with six and three-quarter English pounds for two halves of fairly ordinary beer. Ouch! There are six hand pumps, with Pride being absent for line cleaning, leaving Landlord and the Nicholson's pale brewed by St Austell, and two guests. I went for these two, which were both around NBSS 4, but the Fierce Sunwave 3.4% session pale loses a mark for a) being a hazy pale and b) not saying so on the pump clip. The other, Doubloon Golden Ale from Laine was spot on, but not one I would like to drink a lot of.

On 10^th April 2025 - rating: 6
[User has posted 4273 recommendations about 3935 pubs]

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Tris C left this review about Elephant & Castle

A return visit and it would seem that the floor has had a makeover but what - thankfully - has changed is that the awful games machine has gone which adds more appeal. What has also changed is the décor, where once there were framed newspaper front pages from momentous events, there are now pictures of former resident Freddie Mercury cavorting with Samantha Fox which adds nothing. Allied to which, my pint tasted as though the lines hadn't been cleaned in quite a while and wasn't pleasant to drink. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, so the grade remains unchanged.

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17th June 2016:

Oddly for this part of the world, this is as mentioned, a Nicholson's pub. It dates from 1865 and is tucked away out of the sightline of tourists plodding around dreary Kensington High Street in one of the prettiest enclaves in Kensington. Out front there's an awning-covered patio and inside it's dark, very traditional and very basic with simple furniture, some settles and lots of dark atmospheric three-quarter height wood panelling. There's a pot shelf and behind, there's an old back lit Charrington's bar parapet - it reminded me a bit of The Windsor Castle up the road. How lovely (well almost). The pub was fairly quiet yet despite this, the barman took 10 minutes to serve me. The bloke standing next to me had been there even longer and it's not as if we weren't noticed, as the barman kept glancing over at us as he chatted with customers. Added to this there was a TV showing Euro '16 (for me, a capital offence in a historic pub) and worse, there was a flashing games machine.
Ales: one unused pump, Portobello Bronze Star, Sharp's Doom Bar, Nicholson's Pale Ale, Littlestone's Honey Porter and Glamorgan Brewing Co's Pales of the Unexpected at (for the area) a competitive £4.35 a pint and very nice it was too.
I'll definitely return as this is a very nice pub indeed. If it put the TV, games machine and useless barman in a skip I'd probably give it 8/10.

On 27^th September 2019 - rating: 6
[User has posted 2207 recommendations about 2164 pubs]

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Graham Coombs left this review about Elephant & Castle

A very smart Nicholson's pub in the back residential streets with a nice floral exterior. Inside is an immaculate traditional pub in a U-shape round the central bar, with some nice wood panelling, decorated with memorabilia from the old Barker's department store. There are a few pavement tables outside. A reasonable selection of beers seemed well kept: Hophead, London Pride, Proper Job, Hadley's Moonstone, Doom Bar and the St Austell house beer. Would happily return.

On 13^th June 2019 - rating: 7
[User has posted 3641 recommendations about 3576 pubs]

View more reviews of Elephant & Castle (13)

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