Drayton Court, West Ealing, W13

Located a short distance from West Ealing station, this is a large and rather fancy looking hotel bar run by the local Fullers brewery. You enter via a lobby area with a reception desk to the rear and a fairly plain dining room to the left, with most customers congregated in the lounge bar to right. The dining room is a relatively uninteresting space with formally arranged tables and chairs in an echoey room with some decent wood panelling on the walls and large windows looking out to the main road. The lounge bar is a much cosier bet thanks to something akin to a proper pub interior, including bare floorboards, muted lighting, dark wood panelling on the left-hand wall and a light and dark colour scheme elsewhere. The servery runs along the right-hand wall and has a hefty counter with decorative features and a simple, modernised bar back with promotional blackboards across the top, lots of fairy lights and a TV showing live football at one end. Tables and chairs occupy the front part of the room, then high tables and stools appear through the centre, next to some large support pillars, and comfy sofas and armchairs round out the seating options to the rear, with a lit fireplace to one side. Vases of flowers had been set out on most tables, which gave the place a bit of colour, along with food menus, although I didnt see anyone eating. A square arch to the rear leads into a small, tile floored seating space looking out to a beer garden beyond, which was too dark to explore. Moving around the front of the servery, you reach a second bar space, with similar decor and bar access to the lounge, but more formal seating options. R&B tunes were playing quuetly and there was a nice buzz from a good mix of customers on my Saturday evening visit. No real surprises on the bar, with Fullers London Pride and ESB on cask alonside Dark Star Hophead, two real ciders and a reversed clip. A couple of Siren beers on keg dispense covered the craft beer bases and my Hophead was in good condition, although still sadly not quite the great beer it used to be. I expected this to be a drab hotel bar experience, but found it to actually be a very pleasant pub-like bar, with some decent ale and cosy seating areas in an attractive old building. It's perhaps not quite worth trekking all the way out from Ealing Broadway for, but if you're checking out pubs in the local area, I'd definitely recommend it as a solid addition to such an itinerary.

Still a hotel, this place was built in 1894 in a rather grand baronial style in the more upmarket Pitshanger area of Ealing. The interior is what you’d expect from what is in part a hotel bar (you can tell by the swanky lavs), with a doorway leading to Reception, then a staircase up to rooms. There’s a two-room split here, the right-hand room being a bit funky with some neon signs behind the bar (the Aperol Lounge?). The left-hand side is best described as traditional but modern plush, with dark wood wainscoting, patterned wallpaper, white, duck egg green or teal paintwork, traditional furniture and purple flowers in bottles to tables; the bar array is more modern, with shiny turquoise tiles and tubular steel racks. The pub essentially acts as the bar for guests, but judging by the conversation, customers were locals of a mixed age, though obviously rather more genteel, unsurprising given the area. There’s food of course, a global hotchpotch but seemingly non-Vietnamese. The typical Fuller’s line-up was on offer, along with Moor Illumination then Hophead at a pricey £2.80 a half and good, served by a friendly barmaid. This isn’t a bad place but it’s a little sterile and corporate, but then this isn’t a good postcode for pubs; it you want better in the Ealing area, go to W5 instead.

Official site of Drayton Court - www.draytoncourtlondon.co.uk

Official site of Drayton Court - www.draytoncourtlondon.co.uk

Nice frontage to this pub which is part of an original hotel built by Fullers.Two rooms and very modern interior.Four Fullers cask beers on but I tried the keg collaboration with Yeastie Boys-Double Summer.Nice.Large garden but not much use on a freezing night.Loud music.Interesting historical fact 1-reputed to be the biggest beer garden in England originally.Still massive.2 -Ho Chi Mihn worked in the kitchens in the 1920,s before he realised Communism and mass slaughter of his fellow Vietnamese was his calling.

Randomness Guide to London - Drayton Court entry

Randomness Guide to London - Drayton Court entry

This is an impressively large Fuller’s house, in an impressively large castle-like building. The usual array of ales was on offer, but also including the seasonal Gales Festival. The food menu was pretty straightforward. Sarnies were around the £5 mark, and mains around £8 - £9. The tuna/mayo/cucumber sarny that came with a bit of salad and some assorted crisps for £4.95 was pretty good. Inside it’s as barn-like as a Wetherspoons, with the usual complement of high stools/high tables, sofas, and standard tables and chairs. There’s a separate room on the right that looks as if it might have been a later addition to the pub. It houses a pool table and some pretty basic tables and chairs, and in old money would have been the public bar. At the back of the main bar is a metal framed, covered verandah, essentially for smokers’ use, looking down on a very large and quite attractive garden. This is probably the pub’s best feature. The interior has nothing special to recommend it, reminiscent of a Wetherspoons, although on the plus side it does do some decent Fuller’s ales. This is a decent enough watering hole, if not worth going out of your way to find.