Balham Bowls Club, Balham, SW12

This is yet another Antic pub in this area, and with no prizes for guessing what it was before it became a pub. It’s a labarynthine maze of separate rooms, as ably described by those who came before me. I sat in what might be regarded as the main bar as it contained the bar counter. This room has attractively wood panelled walls bearing various club plaques as well as a portrait of HM The Queen behind the bar. All very traditional for a bowls club, if not for a pub. As usual with Antic there was a decent beer range, and I went for the Truman’s Blindside which was in fine form. I would be happy to visit this one again.

This unusual pub, set in the former clubhouse of the Balham Bowls Club, is one of earliest houses from the Antic pub chain. It's certainly an interesting place and thankfully Antic have been able to retain the feel of a private club, in part by keeping a lot of original features including signage and bowls themed items. You enter into a lobby area with doors leading to either side, a coatstand in one corner and the Bowls Club's original sign on the back wall. Through the door to the left, you find yourself in the main bar - a woodblock floored room with nice panelled walls and a simple servery running down the left hand side. There is a small brick fireplace on one wall with a collection of postcards above, some antlers on the walls and a few period lamp shades. Above the door, an old alarm system can be seen with a toy squirrel seemingly keeping guard over it. Moving towards the back of the building, you pass through a warren of interconnected rooms, one of which has a series of cards displaying random numbers on one wall, which I took to be old scoring cards from the bowling green. I also noticed a lot of board games available here and the garden was visible through the windows although I suspect that the bowling green has long since disappeared. Another centrally positioned snug-like room with its own brick fireplace, sofa and low stool seating and walls decorated with bowling club crests and more lovely wood panelling, leads into the large dining room at the back of the pub. This was lit much brighter than the atmospheric rooms around the bar, and had an upright piano, shelves full of typical, unrelated, decorative Antic-style items as well as plenty of standard table and chair seating. One final room can be found in the front right corner, also accessible from the lobby area. This is a lounge type space with long banquettes and armchairs, which looked quite comfortable, although the room was pretty much empty, perhaps because of its isolated position away from the bar and next to the restaurant. Although it was too dark to explore the rear garden, I did note a good number of benches out the front under large umbrellas. Just the four beers on handpull, which is quite thrifty by Antic standards. The options on my visit were Sharps Doom Bar, Cottage Trick or Treat, Adnams Lighthouse and Sambrooks Wandle. I opted for a pint of the Trick or Treat which seemed to be a bit past its best to me and I struggled to get through the whole pint. I thought this was an interesting conversion that provides nice areas for drinkers and diners alike. The poor pint put me off a little but I would hope that was a blip and I'd be more than happy to give this place another try the next time I'm passing.

This is a rather quirky place, seemingly under the Antic umbrella, so quirkiness is expected. The previous life as a private bowls club remains evident, from walking into the lobby between rooms where a sign required non-members to be signed in, no longer of course, to the mostly wood panelled walls holding numerous shields of bowling clubs and organisations. Two main rooms either side of the lobby with a large rear area set aside as a dining room with 50s dressers and shelves of old cups and plates. Wood block flooring, wall decoration being mostly bowls related with scoring numbers, end markers and club shields and pennants plus a few other odds and ends including a map of the vineyards of the Moselle region. As well as the club style wood panelling there was a bit of exposed brickwork. The rear has a garden area but no sign of the erstwhile bowling green, I suspect the newish looking development behind has put paid to that. I'm assuming it is deliberately tatty, in the Antic way, as various sofas and chairs are ripped open and saggy, and the flooring has blocks missing. I liked the place but I'd prefer something decent to sit on. Beers were Belleville Thames Surfer, Purity UBu, Sambrooks Wandle and Trumans Swallow Swift. I gave the Surfer a go, nice it was too, this brewery is a collective of south London dads who got together outside the school gates dropping their kids, great story. Beware the varied opening hours, 4pm Mon-Thurs, 2 Friday and 12 Sat/Sun.