The Tudor Rose, Coulsdon

This is a large roadside pub in the middle of Old Coulsdon which has decided to go down the high end gastro route, not that this was particularly apparent upon arrival. The main entrance takes you into the central part of the pub where the servery stands opposite, along the back wall. There is limited seating here, but lots of empty space for vertical drinking. You would imagine this would be superfluous to the needs of such a large pub, but a large group of locals shunned the numerous seating options in the rest of the pub in favour of standing around here, generally blocking the bar area. To the left is a two-part formal dining area complete with a sign asking you to wait to be seated. It seemed like a pretty dull area with cheap décor and pastel shaded walls throughout. The front half had arguably the nicer furnishings, but the rear section seemed brighter and airier and thus marginally preferable. A quick look at the menu and its surprisingly steep prices put to bed any thoughts I had of grabbing a bite to eat here, so I lumbered over to the right hand side of the pub, where a large lounge area can be found. Walls are again in pastel shades with part carpeted and part tiled flooring throughout and some weird bits of art on show that looked like roses had been stencilled onto wooden planks from old picnic benches. There were some comfy sofas and wicker chairs in this half of the pub and I was able to bag a seat near the end windows which looked out over a nice grassy pub garden, complete with intact picnic benches. A large Tudor Rose mural on the back wall, near the toilets, rounded out the décor and the overall ambiance was dealt a fatal blow thanks to the dreadful soundtrack that played for the duration of my stay. After some careful manoeuvring through the unnecessary crowd at the bar, I found two ales available – Sharp’s Doom Bar and St Austell Tribute – with a final handpull left unclipped. A very smiley barmaid served me a below average pint of the Tribute as I simultaneously noticed that all of the people around the bar were drinking lager. Perhaps an early evening mid-week visit was not the best time to see this pub at its best. I can only presume it’s a lot livelier at the weekend, when there is a good crowd of diners filling up the dining room. As it was, the place felt far too big to generate any kind of warmth or ambiance and I struggled to take any positives from the visit. Worth keeping in mind if you’re in the area and fancy an expensive lunch, but this is another Coulsdon pub I won’t be troubling again.