The Edgar Wallace, Temple, WC2

First visit back to this one post pandemic and found it still to be a good pub but now with a much-reduced ale range from a few years back and also for my visit only four of the eight chrome ale pumps were badged. These were dispensing Purity UBU, Crouch Vale Brewers Gold, St Austell Proper Job and Southwark’s Bankside Blond. Between us we tried all four and all were in very good condition. The inside of this pub is however completely unchanged and every inch of the ceiling is still covered in one of the most impressive beer mat collections you are likely to see and equally impressive is the collection of period alcohol and smoking product adverts that festoon the walls. And it was good to find the shelf with the collection of Edgar Wallace crime novels still in situ. So perhaps not the real ale Mecca this was pre pandemic, but it is still a cracking pub.

Dating back to at least 1777 and rebuilt in 1891, this renamed from the Essex Head to the Edgar Wallace in 1975, to commemorate the century since the author’s birth; his crime novels adorn shelves by way of décor. Of great note here, is the vast collection of fags ‘n’ beer themed memorabilia; at last, a pub where the publican has got its priorities right. There are also old soap powder boxes, with thousands of beer maps to the ceiling; it’s like drinking in the Museum of Brands. There are also a great many pump clip faces too, hinting at the pubs main strength. Furniture is higgledy-piggledy, the floor is part grey lino or carpeted; customers are somewhat eccentric, certainly not barristers’ clerks, given the pub’s location and giving the place a good vibe, both floors packed out. Sadly, this is no longer the ale mecca of yore, with four unused clips, the increasingly repetitive Landlord, but then Bath Gem, Southwark’s Bankside Blonde and Mayflower Session IPA, which was absolutely excellent and reasonable value – for the area – at £4.95 a pint, served by a fine old-school landlady. This is an excellent pub, but needs to get more ales on to avoid its ‘destination ale house’ status slipping; four – including Landlord – just doesn’t really cut it, especially given the Harp’s full line-up, down the road. Nevertheless, it’s certainly worth a visit, even if it should really carry a government health warning.