The William Camden, Bexleyheath

Large post war pub owned by Greene King,typical of their offering with a modern internal makeover meaning high tables,seating booths,fruit machines and mindless muzak.There are two wings,to the left a lounge to the right rear a large pool room with 3 tables and two darts boards.The menus are corporate pub grub but with very cheap promotions on certain days.There is a wednesday quiz ,saturday dj 8-11 pm and 12 sports screens with Sky and TNT .Some effort has been made to make this a community boozer but that has means offspring are allowed to roam free,very offputting. At the bar just GK IPA(dull as ever,NBSS 2.5,£2.40 the half ) while the Old Golden Hen was reversed. Despite being close to the station,there really is no reason to visit ,unless you want cheap food.There is an excellent micro mere yards away.

This is a large 20th Century suburban pub of the sort that seems to be common in these parts of outer SE London. It's a huge U shaped room with the entrance in the middle and the bar facing you. There are areas to the right and left with a "public" area to the left and "lounge" to the right although the entrance end of the righr area seemed much the same as the left. There are three pool tables and a dart board at the far end of the left area and a juke box that attracted a strange man who appeared to be talking to it. On a Thursday afternoon there didn't seem to be many in apart from me and juke box man. Needless to say there were TV screens everywhere which all seemed to be showing a cricket match with nobody watching. Each side of the bar has three hand pumps whic both had one unused and GK IPA & Abbot. I went for the Abbot (£3.51) which was served in a hideous IPA glass with expanses of white, eggshell blue and orange. I guess that's one way to stop people nicking your glasses. The beer itself was reasonably OK. This place had no appeal to me whatsoever and I won't be back.

There were two ales on in here - Old Speckled Hen and GK IPA (£1.55 a half). Interestingly there were two GK IPA pumps, one of the traditional sort, and the other one of those tall illuminated ones with a shiny pipe to the side of it. My half came from the traditional pump, and the barman said that the other one was never used. I speculated that it came into being as a result of some designer's idea of a flashy gimmick, and the barman didn't demur. The usual Greene King glossy pubco menu was available with plenty of colour photos for those who don't know what things like fish & chips look like. This pub has two separate rooms, connected by a short corridor just inside the main entrance. The room on the left has a mix of carpeted and bare-boarded flooring, is furnished mainly with tall tables/tall stools with a few normal tables and chairs tucked away at the back. The room on the right has a little bit of banquette seating, but I guess is there for the pool tables dominating the room. I obviously spent my visit in the room on the left, where there were one or two prints on the walls, but otherwise not much decor worth mentioning. There's a garden at the back, and a bit of parking space at the front. I thought that this was a fairly characterless pub, but nevertheless really handily placed near Bexleyheath Station, especially for someone about to commence a cross-London journey.