The Castle, Battersea High Street, SW11

From the outside this looks very much like an unprepossessing estate pub, but inside it’s very different, being a Young’s modern and comfortably furnished pub. A focal point of the pub is the real coal fire, which was ablaze when I visited making it a welcome sight after spending some time in the (literally) cold Woodman down the road. As you would expect there are sofas all over the place; a modern bare-boarded floor; spotlights in the ceiling; light pastels shades in abundance, etc, etc. But they’ve done a good job of it, although my personal preference is for the more traditional pub ambience. It’s much larger than it looks from the outside, with seating both sides of the central island bar and going back a fair way, and to the left of the main building. There were four ales on – Wells Banana Bread Beer; Special; Bitter; and Sambrook’s Wandle. I didn’t see any menus, but I would be surprised if a pub like this didn’t do food. But what stands out for me with this pub is its abject Kiwi-ism. Behind the bar some “Waitangi Day” T-shirts were advertised, but presumably they were not selling well as they were reduced from £15 to £10. A sign at the back directed you to “Whare Paku” which everybody knows is Maori for “Toilets”, and with individual doors signed as “Tamu” and “Wahine”. Luckily each door had the appropriate standard depictions of either men or women. Now I have nothing against Maoris, but I have to say that the directions to the toilets are of sufficient importance that they should be in a language that people can understand. I just can’t believe they get many Maoris wandering around the backstreets of Battersea. I suppose it makes a talking point though. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by this pub and really wouldn’t mind visiting again.