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Cambridge PuG Crawl, Friday 5th April 2024 with Mobyduck on the Pub Forum

White Swan, Pimlico, SW1

14 Vauxhall Bridge Road
SW1
SW1V 2SA

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Reviews (Current Rating Average: 6 of 10) Add Review see review guidelines


Just a quick pint, then I'm off left this review about White Swan

McMullen's House near the river end of Vauxhall Bridge Road. The busy bar at the front extends back to three smaller seating / dining areas further back, one of which is raised by a couple of steps. Semi-traditional furniture and decoration, although the feel is more modern and the clientele mostly young. Duplicate AK, Country and IPA (£5.10) clips on the six handpumps, although only the latter two were currently on.

On 10th July 2023 - rating: 7
[User has posted 8061 recommendations about 8061 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Tris C left this review about White Swan

Dating from the mid-18th century in some form, this has been a McMullen’s pub since 2012, with a less than successful refurb in 2018.
It’s a spacious interior which kicks off some way to the rear, with two raised areas with normal furniture, areas with lower floors having the tall stuff. There’s wallpaper which looks distressed, rather than actually being so, which matches the distressed Victorian-style chandeliers, a little bare brick and substantial exposed timber members above the bar; a black cast iron helical staircase lead up to a function room. The floor is modern bare boarded, the ceiling black Anaglypta and customers who seemed to be a mix of noisy locals and office workers.
Ales: AK, IPA and Country at a very decent £2.30 a half and not bad.
This is a much better place than the phalanx of Greene King outlets that infest the area, but it’s not great, let down by the loud music and distracting TVs showing the football, which typically no one was watching.

On 18th November 2021 - rating: 5
[User has posted 1955 recommendations about 1922 pubs]


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john gray left this review about The White Swan

Typical Taylor Walker pub with the usual range of beers.Busy Doombar, Ghost Ship and GK -IPA.

On 12th September 2015 - rating: 6
[User has posted 1023 recommendations about 1009 pubs]


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Malden man left this review about The White Swan

This is a Taylor Walker branded pub situated in a corner location, so I didn't expect too much but the beer range was actually pretty good. There are two banks of handpumps on the side wall bar, across them were Sambrooks Wandle, Hogs Back Summer Lightning, GK Abbot, Youngs London Gold, Adnams Broadside, Tim Taylor's Landlord, Pride plus Tribute and Bombardier "conditioning". Two ciders from Westons too plus Meantime IPA on a font. Ok nothing to set the pulse racing but a decent choice nonetheless. The pub itself is a long open space and has been fitted out in a modern typical London style with pseudo dark wood but recent characterless fittings, semi-raised areas front and back and with a few screens dotted about showing motorsports on Saturday afternoon. Wooden flooring but with a tiled splash area along the length of the bar. Outdoor pavement seating to the front. The usual large menus were on the tables and food was clearly popular with the tourists who seem to be the main visitors, presumably due to the proximity to the Tate Gallery. Nice to see that the staff routinely explained the etiquette and procedure for ordering food and drink to them as they entered instead of allowing them to sit and wait expectantly. Not bad for a TW outlet.

On 23rd September 2012 - rating: 6
[User has posted 1707 recommendations about 1681 pubs]


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Pub SignMan left this review about The White Swan

This spacious Taylor Walker pub has a decent location on the busy Vauxhall Bridge Road, close to Pimlico tube station and Tate Britain. The pub is seemingly looking for a balance between traditional look and modern comfort but the overall effect somehow misses both and ends up feeling quite contrived. The layout is a little odd, with a front and back area which mirror each other in many ways, making the whole place feel like a pub-by-numbers. You enter through a corner door with a raised carpeted seating area to your left and some button backed banquettes to the right. The front windows give you a chance to people watch and if you can’t get a seat by them, there is a TV above the fireplace for your visual distraction – Dad’s Army was being shown in muted form during my stay. The bar is sited along the left hand side of the pub about halfway into the room and there are some high tables and stools opposite. Beyond this, the pub widens and a similar set up to the front is presented, complete with raised seating area, fireplace and TV. A few pictures have been dotted around the walls, but on the whole, there’s not much in the way of decor. Music was being played at quite a loud volume, although not so loud as to impair conversation.
For me, the revelation of the visit was the extensive ale selection. There are two banks of hand pumps, one of which is at the far end of the counter. The offerings, although somewhat mainstream, were plentiful, with Sambrook’s Junction, Black Sheep Bitter, Greene King Abbot Ale, Young’s London Gold, Well’s Bombardier, Taylor Landlord, Purity Mad Goose (£3.76), Fullers London Pride and St Austell Tribute to pick from, with Adnams Broadside coming soon and Weston’s Scrumpy tying up the final hand pump. My pint of Mad Goose was in good shape and served to me by a jovial barman.
The close proximity of the Cask Pub and Kitchen means that I’m unlikely to pay this place another visit, but it’s certainly not without its redeeming features and puts plenty of other Taylor Walker outlets to shame.

On 1st September 2012 - rating: 6
[User has posted 3102 recommendations about 3102 pubs]


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Blackthorn _ left this review about The White Swan

An attractive, street corner pub with plenty of window flower troughs and hanging baskets outside as well as a few benches to sit and watch the world go by. Inside it's a perhaps a little disappointing; nothing at all wrong with it, but it's clearly had a makeover at some point, and doesn't have quite the character that you might expect.

It's effectively a single room bar, although divided in to a front and rear section. Décor wise they're fairly similar with a the paintork being mostly maroon with a few splashes of dark green to break up the monotony. At the front are a number of leather, button backed benches around the perimeter, and some high tables and chairs elsewhere, along with a tiled fireplace. At the rear there's a more conventional selection of tables and chairs. Flooring is a mixture of carpet and wood with a few flagstones around the bar and there is a plasma screen at the rear, although this was not in use on a recent visit. Service was very slow at the bar with just one barmaid serving on a Saturday evening. It would have helped a bit if the guy whose job it was to bring the food out could have helped out behind the bar when he had no work to do, instead of sitting at a table playing with his phone.

Food menu looked to be a decent enough selection of “pub grub” dishes which was divided in to sections such as mains, burgers, pies and sharing platters. Most of the mains were priced around the £8 mark, and we found the food to be rather disappointing. A Chicken Tikka Masala was pleasant enough, but tasted mass produced rather than home made, could done with being a more generous portion and they had run out of naan bread. At £8 it was overpriced by at least £2 or £3. Similarly a pasta dish with pesto and chicken had little discernible pesto taste abd the chicken was rather rubbery.

Beers on tap were Young's London Gold, Old Golden Hen (is that Old Speckled Hen renamed?), Adnams Broadside and Timothy Taylor Landlord. Tribute and London Pride were apparently being conditioned. The solitary cider was Strongbow, unfortunately.

On 9th October 2011 - rating: 5
[User has posted 1937 recommendations about 1850 pubs]


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Rex Rattus left this review about The White Swan

This is now a Punch pub. There were six handpumps on the bar – two were offering London Pride; two were advertising Doom Bar and Broadside but were not available (being conditioned as I recall) another had Young’s Bitter; and the sixth was apparently unused. I didn’t eat, but the menu looked to be typical pubco fair.
Judging by the exterior, it looks to be a late Victorian pub, with the trademark swan in relief above the corner bar. Inside it looked every bit a pubco pub. Flooring is mainly bare-boarded with what looks like some pretty old planking, but with some heavy-duty flagstones around the immediate bar area, and a couple of raised carpeted areas. There was the usual mix of seating consisting of normal tables and chairs, some high tables and high stools, some banquettes; and an example of the rarely seen and particularly non user friendly high banquette and high table combination – the sort where there is little chance of your feet reaching the floor and thus are left dangling. Didn’t see any sofas though. Most of the walls are painted magenta, but otherwise nothing special about the decor – mainly bog standard prints presumably bought in job lots by the pubco. There were the usual games machines and one-armed bandits in evidence; the TV monitor was switched off; and there was some music being played a bit too loudly for my taste. But I would prefer not to have to listen to it at all, so I am perhaps not typical, and I suppose other customers might welcome it.

It’s a decent enough pub as pubco pubs go. There’s nothing particularly bad about it, but nothing special either, and certainly not worth going out of your way to visit.

On 8th February 2010 - rating: 6
[User has posted 2606 recommendations about 2520 pubs]