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Disappointment of the week with Real Ale Ray
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Detail Pages
The Wood House, Sydenham Hill, SE26
Dulwich
SE26
SE26 6RS
Reviews (Current Rating Average: 3½ of 10) see review guidelines
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Malden man left this review about The Wood House
A large rambling split-level pub with several connecting areas plus a more sedate side room, "Paxton's Lounge"....Paxton being the Architect of the nearby Crystal Palace, pictures, photographs and drawings of which are throughout the pub There is a log burner in here, thankfully not used today on the first decent day we've had in months. Mostly boarded floors, lots of wood panelling and shelving, either painted some kind of seawood blue sea colour or a colour I imagine a paint card would call "biscuit". Decor also includes surveying and measuring instruments, shelves in the side room have various jugs, jars books etc. There is a large conservatory to the rear with every table set for formal dining it seemed.
It remains a former Young's house, now the Ram Brewery Company, Young's Special and Ordinary, By the Horns Stiff Upper Lip with their Giggle Mug "coming soon".
I visited while on a walk, it is hilly around here and I arrived hot and sweaty and in need of a drink. Seven people were falling over each other behind the bar, not one had any clue who was next or had been waiting a while. In the end I had to leave manners slightly behind and demand to be served and then to be topped up but thanks to the chap next to me who seemed to understand the rules also and backed up my indignation as the barmaid was about to serve an immediate arrival. No apologies, no thank you for waiting, nothing. If seven people cannot serve around fifteen people in a few minutes I wonder how they are trained.
On 14th April 2018
- rating: 3
[User has posted 1707 recommendations about 1681 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Rex Rattus left this review about The Wood House
The ales on in here were Young's Bitter, Special, and Santa's Little Belter (£2.05 a half), plus a guest of Twickenham Vanilla Stout. The Santa's Little Belter wasn't particularly good, just past its best possibly, but drinkable nonetheless. Being a Young's pub, food is pretty much available at the usual times - the beefburger, etc, is £11, and the pheasant breast wrapped in bacon, etc, etc, is £14.50.
Again, being a Young's house it's been thoroughly modernised to make it more welcoming to families, yada, yada. I was looking forward to the walk through the garden to find the entrance, as experienced by the previous reviewer, but for some reason they've turned convention on its head and you now enter through the main door at the front! A return to sanity perhaps? Inside it's very Young's. The colour scheme is mainly cream and a sort of dark green/indigo colour (probably got a fancy name but I don't know it). There are still several connected and opened up drinking/dining areas, which would have been completely separate at some time in the past.
As you enter, the peninsular bar's facing you; a bit of seating's to the left, including a couple of tall tables/tall stools and armchairs; leading to Paxton's Study (Paxton being the designer of the Crystal Palace) which is furnished with sofas and armchairs. To the right of the counter is a room furnished mainly with banquettes, pouffes, and normal tables and chairs (all reserved for 1.30 PM when I was in at Wednesday lunchtime). At the back on the right is the dining room and conservatory, predictably with all tables laid for diners. The garden is at the rear, with a few more outside seats beside the conservatory all with very Christmassy poinsettias on them.
The decor is mainly prints and photographs, some of the old Crystal Palace itself, plus of course the Queen Mother pulling that pint in the Queens Head, Limehouse. This is of course no longer the unpretentious pub that I remember from the 60s and 70s but it's a survivor in an area with no other pubs nearby, so I'm glad it's still here at least.
On 19th December 2015
- rating: 5
[User has posted 2606 recommendations about 2520 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Pub SignMan left this review about The Dulwich Wood House
With so many bland, soulless pubs taking over our high streets and ruining the pub-going experience for anyone with a hint of a pulse, it's always refreshing to stumble accross one that tries something a bit different. And boy oh boy, is the Dulwich Woodhouse 'different'.
The guys running this place have deconstucted the concept of the pub as you and I would recognise it and then seemingly reassembled it blindfolded, throwing in random elements of other related industries to add to the confused mix. The results of so much brainstorming, speak for themselves.
Why, for example, have the entrance to the pub at the front or side of the building, when you could make punters trudge round to the back, via a beer garden full of out of control kids high on sunshine and e-numbers, before finally entering the premises through an enormo-conservatory with an astro-turf floor?
Why paint numbers on the tables in the beer garden, when you can give punters a nigh-on invisible bit of drift-wood with a number hidden on it, thus reducing the job of the poor bugger trying to serve you your food to that of a bingo caller?
Why bother maintaining the original Victorian interior of the pub, when you can turn it into the lobby of a 3 star hotel?
Why charge a sensible price for a pint of beer, when you could fleece the poor folk who finally make it to the bar for £3.78 for a Hieneken or £4.25 for an Erdinger?
Part of me wants to give this place a high rating just for the sheer balls-out madness of the whole enterprise, but having read through some of the comments below, it seems like this is another case of a well loved and respected local pub selling it's soul for an easy buck.
On 4th June 2009
- rating: 2
[User has posted 3114 recommendations about 3114 pubs]