Bricklayers Arms, Fitzrovia, W1

It's got to be about 15 years since I last visited this pub, when it was one of our regular haunts when I worked nearby at St Giles Court. It doesn't seemed to have changed much. The main bar is at the front with the brick-built bar counter facing you, and with another small room at the back down a couple of steps and accessed round to the right of the servery. The back room was still being used by a bunch of blokes playing darts, possibly skiving off from work. The front room has terracotta tiled flooring, which is most unusual. The panelling on the walls looks to be the real deal, but you never know with Sam Smith's and their penchant for traditional restorations. On the subject of Sam Smith's, unfortunately this isn't one of their pubs that does the real ale version of Old Brewery Bitter. This is quite a nice and relaxing pub that is just far enough from the hell that is Oxford St to avoid the crowds. But I have seen it fairly busy on a nice day with a fair number of punters lounging about outside. But I don't think you would come here for the beer.

This pub dates back to at least the 18th century in some form but was rebuilt in 'brewers' tudor' probably in the 1920s/30s and was one of my main office haunts from 1988 to 1991 when our Gresse Street-based company would fill the place on a Friday night, in fact most weekday nights, spilling out onto the pavement on balmy summer evenings! The small front bar is a bit stark and is a symphony in ceramics with a brick or quarry tiled floor and brick faced bar; upholstered bench seats are to the walls. There's another slightly lower bar to the rear, but it's the upstairs room and bar that's altogether larger. We didn't explore, but if unchanged it was a rather grand room with dark wood, velour seats and window reveals. We didn't bother with the keg-only Smith's offerings but had a half of the low alcohol Alpine Lager and bade our farewells. Closed Sundays.

Sam Smith's pub with quite a plain interior by Smith's standards. 2 rooms on the ground floor didn't visit upstairs.

This secretive little Sam Smiths pub can be found tucked away round the back of Tottenham Court Road. The exterior is rather quaint and charming and it’s comforting to see ample brickwork on display as the name impies. The interior is divided into front and rear basr on tehb ground floor and an upstairs lounge bar. The small front bar is quite simple but is very neat and tidy with leather banquette seating either side of the entrance porch, dark paneled walls.and a bare tiled floor. A corridor to the right of the bar leads to a compact room with bare wooded floors and a single table around a curved banquette. A ledge along on wall has a few stools and there is amazingly a dart board, quite rare for the West End especially within such cramped surrounds. A small service hatch opens into the main bar. Upstairs, the carpeted lounge bar opens during peak hours and is a little bit more spacious with its own wells tocked bar. The window bays double up for extra seating although the awkward and impractical seat at the top of the stairs does baffle me a bit. The general décor contains displays providing everything you ever needed to know about bricks but were afraid to ask with drawings, diagrams, elevations and descriptions regarding everything brickwork. Whilst there is a good selection of Sam Smiths beers (I think virtually the whole range was avaibale) but there are no hand pumps so everything is in keg form. As is the norm for Sam Smiths pubs, prices are so low you sometimes just don’t care. I have used the Bricklayers many times over the years and always found it friendly and civilized albeit somewhat uncomfortable when crowded as it does inevitably get when service can be a bit slow. This little corner of the West End has a few little pubs that must be leaning towards receiving some kind of heritage status and the Bricklayers is well worth a visit just to see how pubs once to be before the interior designers had their day.