The Sheephaven Bay, NW1

This 19th century but rebuilt ex-Courage pub was known as The Mornington Arms until 2008. The current name was applied to indicate that this is an Irish pub, probably along with the green colour scheme. The interior's very bright and music was muted. Sport seemed to be absent, but that may have been explained by the quiz. The only ale spotted was Young's Bitter but for some reason I opted for a pint of Stella as it was a warm night. This seems to be a friendly sort of place but I don't know if this only applies if you are a 'face' or not. This may explain why Pub Cat was a bit sniffy. This isn't my sort of bag but I wish it well.

There were three ales on here - London Pride and Doom Bar of course, plus Young's Bitter (£4.20 a pint!). Unlike the beer, the food was reasonably priced with sandwiches mainly at £4.50 (e.g. BLT inc chips), up to £6.50 for the steak baguette. Pizze are also available from £6.50 or so, a beefburger is £6.95, and other main courses are in a similar price range. My pint of Young's came up quite hazy, but drinkable (possibly the first one pulled up on the day), and my BLT sandwich came with chips, very little lettuce or tomato, but loads of bacon. Fair enough I guess. Inside there's a central peninsular bar, with three inter-connected rooms around it. Furnishings are settles, benches, normal tables and chairs, and one or two tall tables/tall stools here and there. This is an Irish themed pub through and through, from the green exterior and "Gaelic" script, to the mass of Irish sporting memorabilia (including some Glasgow Celtic stuff), comprising mainly shirts and team photographs, covering every inch of the walls and ceiling. There's a brick built fireplace at the back, a bookcase containing books and magazines, with an ancient radio (or should I say wireless?) on top of it. The room on the left has a dartboard, there are TVs all over the place - a couple tuned to racing channels and another couple to Sky Sports - all muted so that we could experience the pop music being played. It was very quiet when I was in on Wednesday lunchtime. Possibly it doesn't get too busy at other times, as it's a bit out of the way. It's a nice enough little place to stop off for a swift one, but the ale selection's sufficiently uninspiring not to make this a regular haunt. But at least they do real ale.

Official site of the Sheephaven, contains event details - www.sheephavenbaycamden.co.uk

Official site of the Sheephaven, contains event details - www.sheephavenbaycamden.co.uk

This is a compact, two bar Irish pub, just a short walk from Mornington Crescent tube station. The pub has two distinctly different bar areas. The larger saloon style bar is to the right and has bare floorboards, a mix of standard chair, high stool and pew seating, a few old pictures on the wall and some trophies on display. The room extends further to the rear into some sort of conservatory type space which in turn leads out to a rear garden. The public bar on the left hand side has a similar array of seating options, but has been decorated in the spirit of the Irish theme. Various bits of memorabilia from the worlds of rugby, Gaelic football and horse racing dominate the wall and ceiling space and included a number of football shirts and lots of items relating to Celtic FC. A set of shelves houses a number of books and board games as well as an old radio. A decent selection of music played throughout our stay and remained at an unobtrusive volume. I was pleased to find two ales on the bar – Sharp’s Doom Bar and an excellent pint of Taylor Landlord, which we sank several pints of during our extended stay here. The staff were very pleasant and easy going and there was a nice buzz about the place when we called in early in the evening and again just before closing. I thought this was a very good little backstreet boozer, tucked far enough away from the main streets to ensure it retains a bit of a local’s pub feel. For an Irish pub, it’s well above the average and I’d happily pop back in here, especially given its proximity to Koko and the tube station.

Plain-looking building with bright emerald green paintwork which shouts "Irish pub" at you from a hundred metres. Once inside, you find two bars - one with another room / conservatory beyond - filled with basic furniture but lots of decoration (mostly devoted to Celtic football club and various gaelic games). As you would expect, there are several TVs showing sport, and boxes of Tayto crisps under the bar counter. A bit more surprising was the reasonable range of food available (and which looked good when some was delivered to a neighbouring table). However, what was totally unexpected, was the three handpumps split between the two parts of the bar, with Doom Bar, Pride and TT Landlord (£3.60, and in good form) available. Overall, I found this to be a tidy, busy yet calm place with a good atmosphere (and much better than I was expecting from first appearances).