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Beer of the Week (w/e 15th March 2026) with Wittenden on the Pub Forum

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Submitted on Tuesday, 11^th July 2023
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The Rookwood Village, E11

314 Cann Hall Road
E11
E11 3NW

Correct details

Served areas

Forest Gate, Wanstead Flats

Reviews of The Rookwood Village (Average Rating: 3½ of 10) Add Review see review guidelines

David Walton left this review about The Rookwood Village

Visited 17/11/25

No cask. Indeed, the four handpumps had overlying Alpacalypse covers suggesting they were promoting the Salt quaff that is quite prevalent in venues these days. In addition, the keg offering was Moretti, Inch's, Cruz, Amstel, Cosmic Drop Berry Punch Beer from Beavertown, Guinness, Staro, Blue Moon, Neck Oil, a couple from Pretty Decent - the I Could Get Better at T*sco for a Quid session IPA and the Can You Kazoo? AF pale ale, Gamma Ray, berries & cherries OM cider.

Another U-shaped venue with the bar counter on a patterned tiled skirt following the inside of the shape. There are some studded leather banquettes around the entrance and then some booth tables running down the middle and along the right-hand side and then around the other outside part leading to the rear right-hand corner on a bare boarded floor, where the open kitchen sits in the corner opposite at the end of the bar counter. There is a small area in the corner opposite the entrance offering a dartboard and a traditional table football game. There is an extensive outside area at the rear of the venue but not open on my visit and too dark to see outside to describe! There were some nice ceiling suspended Xmas displays, and the lighting was generally very pleasant, but the lack of interesting beers means this place couldn't be more than average for me. Several TV screens were showing Sky Sports News absent commentary, and the silence negated by a very non-descript soundtrack.

On 15^th March 2026 - rating: 4
[User has posted 1340 recommendations about 1323 pubs]

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Tris C left this review about The Rookwood Village

Built 1893 in the brewers’ Tudor style, with later brown glazed tile additions to the ground floor and named after Sir Selwyn Ibbetson MP, ennobled Lord Rookwood for his efforts in steering the Epping Forest Act through Parliament in 1878.
The pub went through what must have been a rather substantial refurb in 2020 by Urban Village Group, with just some attractive etched picture windows retained. The interior is a very stripped out open space, with a modern boarded or Minton-style polychromatic tiled floor, bare brick paired with Arts & Crafts-style wallpaper or mid-grey painted field panelling to dado, then cream walls to a mid-grey ceiling, which seems to display some distressed wood beams and weird shiny tiles; at least there’s an attractive cornice, unmolested. The bar front has shiny green tiling (like the Pembury), then a tubular steel gantry supporting ferns, bare brick to the rear. Furniture is mixed, with fawn upholstered banquettes to the periphery, lighting is modern, trendy stuff, typically fabricated from pieces of twisted metal. There were four TVs showing the footie (sound off), which as usual no-one was watching, then two groups playing darts on the two interactive dartboards, in their separate booth to the right-hand rear. There was a good ‘80s’ soundtrack, but with all the hard surfaces, acoustics are very poor. Customers were few in number for a Saturday night, especially when you consider that seating was almost impossible to find at the neighbouring Holly Tree.
An utterly dispiriting ale range amounted to Sharp’s Atlantic (clip reversed), Old Peculiar (clip reversed), then Doom (clip sadly not reversed), me opting for a half of Gamma Ray at £3.25 which isn’t bad for this sort of thing, served by a friendly barman. In addition, there was a fizz line-up, then six unnamed taps to a beer wall.
This place is far too made over for my tastes and the cask line-up, even if all pumps were working, was lamentable. With the Holly Tree next door, I can’t think of a reason to return; a quality cask offering would have got the score up to a '4'.

On 8^th April 2023 - rating: 3
[User has posted 2307 recommendations about 2251 pubs]

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