The High Cross, Tottenham, N17

Founded in 2018, this place takes its name from some neo-Gothic stone thing surrounded by wrought iron railings, at a road junction just to the south; the presence of Ladies and Gentlemen signs are a clear indication that this was once a public convenience, but as a bar it’s anything but bog standard. The interior is tastefully trendy; you can do a tour on Google. Understandably though, it’s absolutely tiny with a bar-ette at the end; smooth sounds played over the stereo, but otherwise there’s no electronic entertainment. Customers were young and trendy, making for a good atmosphere on my Thursday visit. On the minus side, illumination is low, meaning that I couldn’t read the unlit fisheyes, just about making out the Siren logo, which turned out to be their IPA, served by a friendly barmaid and at a reasonable – for ‘craft’ – £3.10 a half, for this is a house of keggery, the lack of cask meaning that this doesn’t qualify as a micropub; it tasted like every other beer of this type. I’m not a fan of bar conversions, almost exclusively eschewing them in favour of traditional purpose-built pubs, which also helps keep them afloat. But this is a great little place and if I could be guaranteed a table to cater for myself and a couple of friends, I could quite easily spend an evening here. However, the lack of cask means that for me it shall remain forever a curiosity, which I’m unlikely to revisit.

This is a great little conversion to a bar. Barmaid assumed by the look of me that i would like the 4.0 lager she recommended to me before i even got to the bar. Wrong ,i went for an imperial stout.I was just about to ask someone where the toilets were when i thought this place is tiny,surely i can find them myself.It took me two circuits of the pub before i found them just behind the front door.

Just over the road from Tottenham’s distinctive High Cross, from which it takes its name, this is a quirky little craft beer bar set in a former public toilet block. The Ladies and Gents have been knocked through to create a narrow but wide single room with bare floorboards, white tile walls and small clear windows with drawn curtains. The left side of the room has hard backed benches and standard chairs around the rear corner under high shelves that are stacked full of boxes of crisps. A drinking ledge with some high stools follows part of the front wall which has been covered with some nice old framed postcards of Tottenham’s former attractions. There’s also a small TV screen here, but this was switched off on a match day afternoon, so it’s unclear if they ever actually show any live sport on it. A very small and simple servery has been squeezed into the rear right corner with a basic wooden counter and white tile bar back. Annoyingly, there is no beer board, so you have to inspect the taps yourself, which was easier said than done with a heaving pre-match crowd in attendance. A glance out of one of the small windows revealed some very limited seating options out to the rear of the building and plenty of customers were standing down both sides of the pub too, all with plastic pint glasses in hand. Match day pies are available, and they offer a daily selection of pricy bar snacks too (scotch egg - £5.00). Music was playing somewhere in the background, but this was easily lost under the chatter of a packed room, although I somehow managed to time my visit perfectly, getting served as soon as I reached the bar. I counted ten keg taps in total, some mounted on the bar counter, others on the bar back, so be sure to check them all. A lot of the usual names were present and correct, including Beavertown and Siren, although I plumped for the Kernel Pale Ale, which turned out to be a rather upsetting £5.90 a pint. This is definitely a quirky, unusual pub that is fun to take unsuspecting friends along to, although perhaps the most unexpected thing would be having to fork out nearly six quid for a pint of beer in Tottenham. I don’t doubt that I didn’t see this place at its best with the busy pre-football crowds in attendance, but it felt like a novelty place rather than a credible bar and as such would only really merit inclusion on a wider pub crawl.

Former public toilets now a bar. Located on the route from seven sisters tube to whl. Craft keg served. Narrow interior that retains original tiling.

Well I’ve drunk beer in lots of ‘toilets’ in my time but now I can say that I have literally. The High Cross is the former public toilet at the junction of Tottenham High Road and Monument Way and after being vacant for a number of years, the building has been renovated under the “Tottenham Regeneration Programme” and opened in April earlier this year as a bar/café. As mentioned below this is an interesting place to drink. It’s been renovated to a high standard and internally the original urinal crème coloured tiles are a striking feature with the lower part of the walls now wood panelled and providing a drinking shelf with stalls around the walls that do not have the half a dozen seating tables this small space can accommodate. The small bar at the far end as you enter has ten taps in a group of 6 to the front and four more at the back and on my visit there was a decent representation from nearby London Craft breweries in the form of Beavertown, Pressure Drop and Kernel alongside a couple from Siren. There is a limited food menu with about four main and then some upmarket pub lite bites in the form of pork pies and scotch eggs, which were not cheap but the Pork and black pudding pie I went for at £4 hit the spot. This is a difficult one to rate, especially as being Keg only, but I’m going to give it a 7 for uniqueness value alone. And whisper this quietly, especially if in the presence of any CAMRA committee members, but if it wasn’t for the new breed of craft Keg, interesting places like this would not be opening as bars. It's closed on Mondays but opens at 12 for the rest of the week I believe.

Interesting place,converted from a former public toilet. Staff cheeful and helpful. Rather expensive though.