The Wrong 'Un (JD Wetherspoon), Bexleyheath

Wetherspoons apparently named this former furniture store after a cricketing term, in reference to Bexley’s supposed cricketing heritage, although you have to wonder if it wasn’t also a nod to the sort of custom they thought they might end up attracting. Certainly on my recent visit there was a large group of loud, aggressive, foul-mouthed men causing a disturbance as I arrived, although to my good fortune they left not long after I got served, and the place duly quietened back down again. This is a fairly simple, straight-forward ‘Spoons shop conversion of the sort you’ll find in great abundance around South London. You enter through the front café-style folding doors into a decent seating area with a good mix of standard and high stool seating and a TV screen showing live rugby. The servery appears mid-way down the left hand wall and has a simple dark wood counter and a large plain mirrored bar back. Two rows of standard tables and chairs run opposite with several padded bench booths on the opposite wall, each with a large black and white photo of a local scene on the end wall, and frosted glass partitioning screens. The room narrows to the rear before opening out again to the right where a couple more booths can be found in a cosier part of the pub which had a TV showing Final Score, allowing me the agony of ‘watching’ my team throw away a two goal lead via the vidiprinter. The pub has eight handpulls – not a great amount for a ‘Spoons and even worse given that three were taken up with ‘Spoons regulars such as Abbot Ale and Ruddles. Thankfully the remaining five were all operational, dispensing guest ales (albeit not very exciting ones), so I tried a pint of the Dark Star Hophead for £2.20. This was a very well kept pint and I was served by a surprisingly friendly barmaid, although the same couldn’t be said for some of her colleagues. I can’t say I had high hopes for this place, especially given the dubious welcoming committee, but it turned out to be a pretty good visit. The pub is inherently unmemorable but the beer is fine and it would make a good addition to a crawl of the local area.

This is a typical 'spoons. There are booths ranged along the right hand side, tall tables/tall stools along the left until they give way to the fruit machines and then the bar counter, and loads of normal tables and chairs ranked down the centre of the room. There's a family area down at the back, with more standard furnishings. The name of the pub seems to be a cricket reference, and bowling in particular. Unsurprisingly there are some cricket related prints on the walls. This one is as good as, and in fact better, than a lot of 'spoons I've visited. You always know what you're going to get in a 'spoons - decent food, decent beer, all at decent prices.

This is a fairly standard shop conversion that does suffer from the cave effect as it gets dark the further away from the front doors you are. They had a reasonable selection of ales with a couple of Locale ones. I went for the Westerham Spirit of Kent (£2.15) which was reasonable but hazy.