New Cross Inn, New Cross, SE14

Very busy,loud music,hipster crowd.Large stage and pool table dominate the bar.Still the same four beers they had on Rex,s visit.Not a pub for me but seemed to be well like by the crowd in attendance.

This is a music pub, with the main ground floor bar dominated by the stage on the left. It's still as tatty as when the previous reviewer visited. There are a handful of tall tables/tall stools by the window, with the centre of the room fill with grotty wooden picnic benches. It's absolutely charmless, which is what I have to suppose is preferred by those who frequent music pubs. They've also found room for a pool table. There is also another bar downstairs, but this was closed when I was in at about 5.30 PM on a Wednesday. On the plus side there were four real ales on - Doom Bar, St Austell Proper Job, Whitstable Bay Pale Ale, and Brockley Red, as well as a draught cider whose name I failed to note. This place is probably fine as a music venue, but not somewhere I would want to visit again if I was planning a pub visit. Indeed, what sets it apart from all other pubs I've visited is the cloakroom on the right by the door.

Housed in an attractive building on a street corner in the heart of New Cross, this pub, which now caters to the students from nearby Goldsmiths University, has sadly seen better days. Perhaps better described (and experienced) as a live music venue, they nevertheless trade as a pub during the day with a lengthy roster of bands scheduled for forthcoming evenings. The pub was refurbished as recently as 2012, but looking at it today, it’s as if it hasn’t been cared for in years. The layout is fairly simple, with a single room served by a bar which for some reason faces away from much of the room. There’s a battered wooden floor which sets the tone for much of the decor and furniture. Walls are painted in dark colours and have various LP’s, record sleeves and music posters covering them. There are high tables and stools along the front windows, which distract the passersby from the rest of the room which is filled with sticky picnic benches with chipped paintwork. At the rear of the room a couple of battered sofas look out of place without a table in front of them, although there is a pool table nearby, so maybe they are for players to relax on between shots. The left hand side of the pub is dominated by the stage area, which again looks messy and off-putting. A juke box and TV screen round off the distractions and the students were enjoying an episode of BBC quiz show ‘Pointless’ when I arrived. Unexpectedly, there were two ales available – Sharp’s Doom Bar and St Austell Trelawny – plus four real ciders with two each from Weston’s and Thatcher’s. My pint of Trelawny took forever to pour and could best be described as ‘drinkable’. A handy blackboard next to the bar listed the prices of all available drinks and pointed out the fact that all prices increase after 20:00, so that the £2.80 I paid for my pint of ale, would have set me back £3.50 if I’d arrived an hour later than I did. It’s difficult to draw positives from this visit – they serve ale, the building is quite striking as you approach it and I got a ‘Pointless’ answer whilst watching the aforementioned quiz show. That’s about it. Do yourself a favour and go to the much nicer New Cross House over the road if you want a drink – save this one for live music and not much else.

Official site of New Cross Inn, contains live music listings - www.newcrossinn.com

Official site of New Cross Inn, contains live music listings - www.newcrossinn.com