The Albion, Kingston Upon Thames

This is a Greene King pub so no surprises on the ale front, with London’s Best and GKIPA (£3 a pint) on. There was a basic pub grub menu available when I visited on Thursday lunchtime, with sarnies at £4 and main meals mostly around the £7 mark. They’ve made some effort with the exterior of the pub, endowing it with some well tended hanging baskets, which goes some way in offsetting the negative effect of the various adverts for sport and the like. It’s got a nic location down a fairly quiet street, and overlooks some open space in the Fairfield Recreation Ground. Inside the pub’s just one room – carpeted on the left and bare-boarded on the right. There’s a bit of banquette seating in the window bay on the right, with a couple of small square stools, but otherwise the furnishings are normal tables and chairs. There’s some sort of noticeboard on one of the walls, otherwise it’s the usual mixed bag of miscellaneous black and white photographs, probably produced from some GK warehouse. However, the ceiling is very colourful, having been covered with shirts and scarves from loads of football and rugby clubs. I’ve seen this sort of thing quite a few times in pubs, and I always think it adds a bit of personality to a place. The room goes back a bit to the right of the bar counter, leading to an area with a pool table and a bit more seating, and on to a small garden at the back. As you would expect, there was a TV on showing the Olympics, and signs in the window advertised a pub quiz on the last Thursday of the month, as well as some live music.. I thought that this was a clean, comfortable and friendly seeming pub. I’m not a great fan of Green King beers so probably won’t make an effort to visit again – but if it did ever have a guest ale on I would be delighted to pay a return visit.

My early evening visit found the pub with a handful of customers but decent friendly service even if the choice was GK IPA or Ruddles County. This is an L-shaped pub, comfortable with patterned banquettes with cushions, standard tables and chairs plus a few bar stools, venetian blinds at the windows, old B&W photos of Kingston landmarks and a few framed sketches of buildings. The floor is generally wooden but carpeted in the front bar area. There is a pool table and a dartboard hidden away at the back on a return wall, a TV on the chimney breast was showing the Asian Cup game between China and Qatar without gaining anyone's interest and clashed volume wise with the juke box. The ceiling has numerous football shirts and scarves from various teams displayed as does the end bar wall where there are some football programmes protected by plastic and a Kingstonian FC flag from a Wembley trip some years ago. Food menus on the tables were priced reasonably, eg sandwiches £3.50 (£4.50 with chips) and ham two eggs and chips £6.95. There is a garden area with seating at the back plus a gazebo thing for the smokers. Pubs are different at different times but I quite liked my short stay here and would call in again especially if the beer selection were to improve.

A Greene King pub situated on the corner of Fairfield, a short stroll fronm the town centre.The L shaped interior is comfortable enough without having anything special to it. The rear section contains a pool table and dart board and there are a couple of sport orientated flat screens. The underwhelming nature of the placa is mirrored by the mundane beer selection with just the one ale (IPA) available and 2 unused pumps, an arrangement that will hardly entice people away from the town centre. I was the only customer on a Saturday lunchtime when the local football team had a huge match 15 minutes walk down the road which, for a pub that isn’t particully unappealing or off the beaten track, suggests that someone really needs to inject a bit of thought and effort before it ends up as a another closed pub statistic.