The Great Northern Railway Tavern, Hornsey, N8

This is a large, ornate Fullers pub located on a fairly busy road, about a five minute walk from Hornsey station. The pub looks pretty impressive on approach, thanks to a well looked after façade, and some of this grandeur has been retained inside as well. Entering through the corner door, this wasn’t initially all that apparent, as you find yourself in an open plan room with modern floor tiles, some basic tables and chairs around the perimeter and a banquette to the rear, but nothing too interesting to get excited about. This room felt like a bit of an overspill area and was definitely the last part of the pub to fill up on our Thursday evening visit. On closer inspection there are a lot of large plain windows around two sides of this room, but a couple of old etched glass panes have been retained, including in the old Jug and Bottle doorway, now disused. This door also has a very decorative frame and there’s a nice partitioning screen close to it with amazing etched glass, floral design panes. The servery extends into this space from the left-hand main bar area, with a long sweeping counter with curved ends passing through a small, snug-like space with enough room for a single table. The bar back has some attractive arched mirrors along the top and a decorative woodwork frieze below and lots of potted plants for colour. There’s limited seating opposite the bar, down the left-hand wall, but the pub opens out into a very nice room to the rear, which boasts plenty more tables and chairs in a nicely decorated space with a fireplace and pleasant skylight. On the bar, three operational handpulls were dispensing Fullers London pride, Cloudwater Easy Pale and something from Siren. The Easy Pale was in reasonable condition, but cask seems to play second fiddle to the pub’s craft keg range, which appeared to be extensive, running across two long banks of taps. We visited for a beer tasting session with The Kernal brewery, which was hosted in the back room and included six beers from the brewery’s tap takeover. The event was hosted by someone from the brewery, but the real star was the barmaid, who brought all our beers out on time and also plied us with an excellent selection of cheeses which we all munched through with scant regard for how well they paired with the beer! Fullers have got a few pubs around the capital that seem to have this heavy focus on craft beer and a limited selection of their own products, and on the whole, I quite enjoy these venues. This place was no exception, with excellent service, some fine traditional features, a few decent ale options and an extensive craft keg range marking it out as somewhere worth investigating. Date of visit – 9th November 2023

Dating from 1897, this is something of a minor gin palace, still displaying its gold gun carriage above the hanging sign, an indication that this was once a Taylor Walker house, recently taken over by Fuller’s. The pub is well described below and on CAMRA’s heritage site as this is listed as being of Regional Importance; it’s also nationally Grade II-listed, so I suspect all the internal fittings about which some reviewers express doubts, are original. As mentioned, there are still tap takeovers with four pumps to the left, one unclipped with the minority being from Fuller’s: Pride, DEYA’s Best Foot Forward and Wylam Brewing’s Fleek at an excruciating £6.15 and not really something I’d have ordered again, irrespective of price. This is a fine heritage pub and makes for a great triple quadruple with the Queen’s and Railway Tavern.

Official site of The Great Northern Railway Tavern - www.thegreatnorthernrailway.co.uk

Official site of The Great Northern Railway Tavern - www.thegreatnorthernrailway.co.uk

A fine looking building with a Fullers pubsign and lots of interest,although various external doors to the Jug Bar,Public Bar,and at the street corner no longer function.However there is lots of etched glass to admire,with large picture windows.Internally it's L shaped with glass inlaid deviders and a raised dining area to the front,and generous banquettes down one side.Through a doorway is an impressive room with a stain glass roof light,and a large ornate fireplace.The snooker scoring frame gives away the original use,these days there is an odd mixture of seating options.Out the back is a large beer garden. Food looks a notch up from pub grub with mains £10-14 with lighter bite options ,and the muzak was in keeping with a hipsterish vibe. There are 4 handpumps drawing on my visit London Pride ,Crate Rye with Magic Rock Hattrick and Inhaler (drinkable,cloudy ,ludicrous short measure and ludicrous £5.10 price).However the main emphasis here is from the 16 craft keg taps delivering all manner of styles from many leading craft brewer such as Siren Craft,Howling Hops,Beavertown,Magic Rock and so on. I was initially excited to see Magic Rock real ale,but that subsided once I had invested in a pint.My guess is that craft keg is the draw here and there were adverts for a Beer Festival of sour brews at the end of August.Good luck with that,it could be pricey !