The George, Soho, W1

The George is a typical late Victorian, single room pub in the depths of Soho. Rather awkwardly laid out with a fruit machine almost blocking the one door and a generous amount of space behind the bar given the size of the pub. 2 ales but the pumps are rather strangely situated at opposite ends of the bar and you cannot tell what they are without asking or fighting your way around the bar to look (Courage Best and Bombardier is the answer). Quite airy with plenty of windows, bare floors, basic furniture and 3 TVs (a bit excessive for a pub this size), however the best features are probably the old mirrors advertising Friary Meux (remember them) beers and Mineral Water. Nothing specifically wrong with the pub but there is not really enough to warrant going out of the way for and is probably best as part of a crawl or a meeting place.

There is only one handpump on the bar, with a reversed clip when I arrived during a late lunchtime on Wednesday. Just to be a bit contrary, I asked whether there was any real ale on, knowing what the answer was going to be (or so I thought), but surprisingly the lady whom I took to be the landlady said that there was a cask on ready to be pulled through. It turned out to be Theakston’s Cooper’s Butt, and a decent pint it was too, although at £3.40 a pint the sort of price I’ve become anaesthetised to paying in Central London. I didn’t see any sign of food or menus. This pub is housed in a magnificent Victorian corner-site building. Inside it’s a small one-room pub, with a mixed bag of furnishings crammed into it – one high pedestal table and high stools; stools at a ledge by the windows; a couple of sofas and armchairs, plus a couple of banquettes. The limited wall space is dominated by three superb large brewery mirrors, and a flatscreen TV that was switched off. They’ve clearly replaced the upholstery on the banquettes since my last visit, and in fact the whole place looks a fair bit cleaner. The bar back looks as if it is an original feature, and the “Taylor Walker” windows look pretty old, if possibly not original. Like all pubs in this area, the clientele is predominantly passing trade, but nonetheless it has retained some semblance of being a real pub, a characteristic sadly lacking in most drinking establishments in this part of the world. I would be happy to pay a return visit.

This corner pub stands on the junction of Wardour and D'Arblay Street, a bit further down Wardour Street from The Ship.. At street level it’s a good example of a Victorian pub exterior with a granite facade with heavy wooden framed windows, with cut glass panels.. Above the plaster work has the date of 1897 for when the pub was built and the face of the English king the pub is named after. Internally it’s still largely a traditional Victorian pub with the smallish single room having a wooden oak floor and panelled walls ands several of the fixtures and fittings look original, like the curved bar area and the brass ceiling lights. There’s a few nice traditional touches such as the several old brewery mirrors that adorn the walls. It was quite quiet when I visited so not much atmosphere, and there’s not a great choice of Ales in that there is a solitary hand pump dispensing St Austells Tribute.