Pub Science Experiment #1
Pub 3: The Railway Tavern, Commercial Road E14
Category: Railway
Ten or fifteen minutes’ walk from Globe Road is another Railway Tavern. The railway this one’s next to is of the Docklands Light variety (Limehouse Station) and the pub’s nestling under a railway bridge looking much older than the DLR. My interest in Railways does not extend to an interest in railways, so I can speculate no further on what this all means.
This Railway is, at least by comparison to the last one, a friendly kind of place. The nice Scottish lady behind the bar smiles and has a little joke as I order what turns out to be a perfectly acceptable pint of Tetley’s. The fellows at the bar seem cheery enough, apart from the regulation old geezer hawking stuff up from the back of his throat over there. I’m served a bag of crisps. The football’s on. Everything’s OK.
It’s small enough to be cosy in here, and a cosy wee boozer in this bleak stretch of Commercial Road, near the northern entrance of the Rotherhithe Tunnel, would be a blessed relief. But a recent unsympathetic refurb knackers any chance of that. The wooden seating looks clean, and not in a loving-homely way but in a B&Q way. There is far, far too much pine tongue & groove in the place, it’s ugly and unwelcoming. Still, this is the best Railway I’ve been to so far, and as time knocks some of the corners off the decor, it might grow into being a good pub (again?). Not yet, though.
Overall mark: (out of 10): 5