The Woodman, Wimbledon Park, SW19

Tris C left this review about The Woodman

This pub dates from at least the mid-19th century but was rebuilt in 1898. This current brewers’ Tudor beast was constructed in the ‘30s, to the designs of Fuller’s renowned inhouse architect, Thomas Henry Nowell Parr; it’s situated in a none too inviting part of Merton, five minutes’ walk from Wimbledon Park tube.
As Rex mentions, his visit was undertaken a few weeks after the last makeover, meaning that his earlier missive and that of MM no longer really apply. There’s a very worn boarded floor, the bar back is bare brick and scaffold, the front clad with planks. Indeed, there’s much bare brick with white paint to what little plaster still clings to the walls. To the right-hand annex is a games machine and pool table and on high, illumination comes from trendy hanging fixtures with filament bulbs. Furniture is mixed and quite modern, there are trendy vertical radiators screwed to walls and the urinals stank, the cubicle lacking paper. Customers were mixed, many visible through the bifold doors to the gravel garden and a smooth, contemporary jazz soundtrack played.
There are now no longer any pumps and not even any ‘craft’, me plumping for a half of Blue Moon with obligatory chunk of squished orange bobbing about in it, all for £3.20, served by a cheery barmaid; the landlord was equally friendly.
More anodyne than plain bad, this place is marginally better than expected, but the input of Nowell Parr means that this pub would once have had a spectacular interior, which I guess would have garnered at least ** from CAMRA; what a crying shame.

On 3^rd June 2024 - rating: 4
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