The Rookwood Village, E11

Built 1893 in the brewers’ Tudor style, with later brown glazed tile additions to the ground floor and named after Sir Selwyn Ibbetson MP, ennobled Lord Rookwood for his efforts in steering the Epping Forest Act through Parliament in 1878. The pub went through what must have been a rather substantial refurb in 2020 by Urban Village Group, with just some attractive etched picture windows retained. The interior is a very stripped out open space, with a modern boarded or Minton-style polychromatic tiled floor, bare brick paired with Arts & Crafts-style wallpaper or mid-grey painted field panelling to dado, then cream walls to a mid-grey ceiling, which seems to display some distressed wood beams and weird shiny tiles; at least there’s an attractive cornice, unmolested. The bar front has shiny green tiling (like the Pembury), then a tubular steel gantry supporting ferns, bare brick to the rear. Furniture is mixed, with fawn upholstered banquettes to the periphery, lighting is modern, trendy stuff, typically fabricated from pieces of twisted metal. There were four TVs showing the footie (sound off), which as usual no-one was watching, then two groups playing darts on the two interactive dartboards, in their separate booth to the right-hand rear. There was a good ‘80s’ soundtrack, but with all the hard surfaces, acoustics are very poor. Customers were few in number for a Saturday night, especially when you consider that seating was almost impossible to find at the neighbouring Holly Tree. An utterly dispiriting ale range amounted to Sharp’s Atlantic (clip reversed), Old Peculiar (clip reversed), then Doom (clip sadly not reversed), me opting for a half of Gamma Ray at £3.25 which isn’t bad for this sort of thing, served by a friendly barman. In addition, there was a fizz line-up, then six unnamed taps to a beer wall. This place is far too made over for my tastes and the cask line-up, even if all pumps were working, was lamentable. With the Holly Tree next door, I can’t think of a reason to return; a quality cask offering would have got the score up to a '4'.

Facebook page of The Rookwood Village - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of The Rookwood Village - www.facebook.com

Official site of The Rookwood Village - therookwoodvillage.com

Official site of The Rookwood Village - therookwoodvillage.com