Woking Pub Explorations

The chances of a scruffy pub ticker coming from Oxford for a pint in the Railway Club are a million to one they said.
But still they come!

This post finds me travelling to Woking, the original setting of War of the Worlds.  So when I arrived I made a beeline to get a picture of the fantastic Tripod statue on Church Street before those clouds could build up and spoil the blue sky background.

HG Wells wrote War of the Worlds whilst living in Woking in the mid 1890's.  I wonder what he'd have thought of Jeff Wayne's musical version, or Spielberg moving the action to New York...or of the local Wetherspoon's being named in his honour?

The Herbert Wells (51-57 Chertsey Road, Woking, GU21 5AJ)
The building that this pub is located in was previously a branch of Woolworth's, prior to opening as Spoons in 1995.  It's a big place, the bar and much of the seating in one rectangular room, with a quieter separate room to the left side.

This is a longstanding beer guide entry, serving up the regular JDW range alongside local Surrey Hills 'Gilt Complex' and 'Shere Drop'.

 

I ordered the 'Guilt Complex', a golden, hoppy, summery ale.  And yet another Mangalorian Cauliflower curry - an enjoyable quiet lunchtime pint with the food making for a sensible start to the day.

The Herbert Wells provided some competition for Dunstable's Gary Cooper for my Best Statue in a Spoons award...

It's quite appropriate that the pub has a statue within it, as Woking is full of them.

 

I believe this is the most statues I've encountered in a town since Skopje.

I won't include all of the pictures I took of urban art in Woking...although they're possibly better pictures than the one I took of the Railway Athletic Club.

Woking Railway Athletic Club (Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6JT)
That's not the entrance in the picture above, although a pic of the main door along the side of the building wouldn't have been much more fetching.
It was also very much a 'ring buzzer for entry' kind of place.  Just don't advertise yourself as a complete weirdo by blurting out "I'm here for a beer guide tick" when the nice lady behind the bar asks how she can help.

There were two cask ales on: Church End 'What the Foxes Hat' or VOG 'Hotel Barrifornia'.
I opted for the Yakima hopped 'Hotel Barrifornia', very reasonable at £3.20 a pint, Eagles lyrics proving popular on the Untappd reviews.

The club consisted of one long room, pool table to one end with a solo player (good way to retain a winning streak), and a handful of blokes dotted around on the cushioned benches along the wall.
The regulars at the next table involved me in their conversation, ending on an ominous warning that "everything shrinks and shrivels in old age".  I can't remember the context.

With the centre of town seeming to offer slim pub pickings, I decided to make the short walk northbound to Horsell - once a village in its own right, now swallowed up into greater Woking.
I found my way around the dual carriageway which was in my way, then across the Basingstoke canal.
Aha, more statues... this time cricketers adorning both sides of the pedestrian bridge...

I think I got a bit impatient ambling along the Horsell road.
As soon as I rounded a corner and saw a pub I snapped a picture and strode right in.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the right pub - the Good Beer Guide regular - which was 50 meters further along the road.

The Red Lion (123 High Street, Horsell, GU21 4SS)
Okay, so it wasn't the pub I'd intended to be in, but they did have the local beer on offer at the bar.

This looked to be predominantly a dining pub, with seating on a couple of levels in an L-shaped room, all very bright, neat and tidy.  A few tables left of polite folk finishing lunch; smartly attired staff who call you 'sir'.
I was glad I'd put on a decent top on rather than my Bob Vylan t-shirt.

The Thurstons 'Horsell Gold' was a decent, well-kept pint.
But it was the original home of that brewery and the GBG entry that I'd made this walk for.

The Crown (104 High Street, Horsell, GU21 4ST)
With no disrespect to the Red Lion, this was more like it.  Two rooms either side of the pub, with a bar counter straddling both.  Of course I got it wrong and picked the empty one, then found the route round the back to find a table amongst the afternoon punters.

The Crown was the local CAMRA branch Pub of the Year winner in 2022 and 2023.  Definitely a real ale drinkers pub, with five hand pumps serving up beers from Thurstons, Church End, Triple fff, and Surrey Hills.  Just look at the neat and tidy tasting note blackboards.

Bonus points for proper beer towels - a rarity these days, now that most places have those bobbly bit rubber things on the bar.
I stuck with Thurstons brewery, ordering a pint of the American pale ale.  Thurstons was originally brewed in the back of the Crown, before moving to a separate site a couple of minutes down the road.
A great pint, enjoyed in comfortable surroundings, the folks around me doing the crossword in the papers, chatting, and sharing a bit of banter with the landlord.

I made my way back the same way to the town centre, checked the train times, and figured I could squeeze in a quick half before the next Guildford-bound service.

The Sovereigns (Guildford Road, Woking, GU22 7QQ)
I opted for the nearest pub to the station, close enough to have originally been called the Railway Hotel.  A name which I prefer - no idea where they got 'sovereigns' from.

We're in the world of Ember Inns here.  A sprawling place with multiple areas, modern decor,  sport on TVs, big pub grub menu, and three real ales to pick from.
And pretty much no late afternoon custom...

I still enjoyed my Rudgate 'Ruby Mild'.  It's my own fault visiting at quieter times, but at least I get the pick of the tables.
Here's the view through the window from my seat, Woking erecting its own fancy modern buildings next to the station.

Heck, there were a lot of traffic lights to wait for and building sites to navigate for such a short distance between the pub and platform.  I drank up quickly and made my way for the next south-bound departure.
Three trains and one bus made for a lengthy journey home, but I felt it had been worth it to wander around a town I don't know at all well, enjoy a couple of good pints, and see all those statues.

Staines and Egham Pub Crawl

A bit more Surrey, in which we indulge in the homebrew at Thames Side Brewery, discover that magnificent University buildings exist beyond Oxford, and gatecrash a baby shower.

As per usual...we started in Spoons.
A Spoons with a long frontage, minimal hanging basket effort, and a man getting comfortable in the hands behind your head pose in the window.

The George (2-8 High Street, Staines, TW18 4EE)
It's a relatively modern building, constructed in the '90's to replace a market which burnt down.  Prior to that you'd have found Tesco in this location, and - much further back - an old inn called The George, from which this took the name.

Alongside the 'Spoons regular beers there was Frome 'Funky Monkey', Maxim 'Double Maxim', and a Coach House 'Blueberry Best Bitter' available when we visited.

We ordered two of the above by the app, saving ourselves from standing in a Wetherspoon's queue, two identical pints arriving shortly after.
"Which is which?" we asked.
"Dunno, I just pick them up from the end of the counter and deliver them".

Hmm..that's a downfall of ordering by the app, isn't it?
Although, to be fair, there have been occasions where two beers have been poured right in front of me at the bar and I've still managed to forget which is which.

It looks like I didn't take any pictures inside The George.  I made up for that when we arrived at the Thames Side Brewery, a short walk away.

Thames Side Brewery (1 Hale Street, Staines, TW18 4UW)
This brewery was set up by a chap called Andy Hayward in 2015, moving a couple of times before settling here.
You'll find the brewing kit down one side, a stage at the end of the room, and various rescued furniture throughout a large open space.  It had a bit of a social club feel to it, albeit without the punters early on a Saturday afternoon for us to socialise with.

Nice jukebox and stylish seating in the front corner near the door..

And a hefty choice of beers available at the bar.  There were the Thames Side regular cask offerings, plus several 'White Label' series brews.
I'm a sucker for pump clips depicting slabs of vinyl and anything that claims to be limited edition.  Hence ordered two of these: the Deep Purple orientated 'Black Night', a tasty 4.3% stout, and - long beer name alert - 'You're never too old to rock & roll if you're too young to die".

 

The latter was a hefty 6.3% old ale, of the pond water murk variety...

I don't think I'd have wanted more than a half of it.  I would have been quite happy trying the other beers on offer, but needed to pace myself if we were going to make it to the rest of the pubs on today's list.
Despite it being quiet, I really did like the Brewery - good music and lovely staff in a taproom with a lot of character.

Before moving to the current site, Thames Side Brewery used to concoct their beers in a modern building on the riverside.  That site is now run as an independent craft bar, so we figured we'd pop our heads in and have a look.

If it's good enough for Gene Simmons, it's good enough for us. 

 

Last Hop (Unit 2, Thames Edge Court, Clarence Road, Staines, TW18 4SU)
As with our previous destination, this was a wide open space without enough people in it.  There was a stage for live entertainment, and a stack of those Tank beer things to one side.  It's smaller than the Thames Side Brewery, but has the bonus of the riverside location.

There were two cask ales on offer: Windsor & Eton 'Koh-i-noor' and Titanic 'Plum Porter'.
Both familiar, so I tried to order the strong Windsor & Eton keg stuff, only to be disappointed the Belgian Diablo and Storm had both run out, despite still showing on the electronic screen.
So I ended up with a local Stardust 'Innuendo' 6.5% hazy NE IPA.  Then drank it too fast when we checked the train times and realised how long it was going to take to walk to the station.

We moved on from Staines for the next part of our day out.
A quick march down to the station, then onto the South Western train for a 5-minute hop to Egham.  I did come here many years ago for the beer festival at the Services Club, beloved by the tickers but - other than that - this town is a mystery to me.

We walked along the busy A38 towards our pub, then got distracted by the Royal Holloway University of London.   This distracted us from our mission, as we diverted into the grounds, attracted by the impressive architecture on a grand scale.

And there I was thinking we had a monopoly on University buildings back home in Oxford.

Our destination was in quieter side streets, just beyond the bounds of the University campus.
And it had an absolutely top-notch pub sign...

The Happy Man (12 Harvest Road, Englefield Green, TW20 0QS)

This dates back to Victorian times when two residential properties were converted into the pub, original custom coming from the workers building the Royal Holloway College, who would have worked up quite a thirst judging by the size and intricacy of the parts we'd seen.

The pub has mostly retained the original layout, consisting of several snug interlinked spaces, the bar itself straddling the two front rooms.

Here's the cask choice on our visit...

Beers from London, Devon, Hampshire, and wherever Laines concoct their ales (they've become quite prolific and it can't all come from that Brighton brewpub).
I picked the Bowman 'Wallops Wood', predictably misreading it and asking for 'Wally's' Wood.  A decent chestnut coloured, malty bitter, enjoyed in a cracking proper pub.

We had a half-mile walk around residential Englefield Green streets to the next Beer Guide pub on our list.

The Beehive (34 Middle Hill, Englefield Green, TW20 0JQ)
The alarm bells began to ring when we saw the 'Fully Booked' A-board.  Then, as we squeezed through the crowds under the awnings to the side of the pub, it dawned on me that everyone was much more smartly dressed than I was (not difficult) and I spotted the flower displays and a large table of presents.  Baby shower.  Bugger.

I almost gave up, but popped my head back in through the side door and asked if we were okay to grab a pint and take it out to the front tables away from the event.  One check by the staff later and we were sat under the umbrella out front with a pricey pint of Pride.

WhatPub tells us the "Cosy well kept open-plan Fuller's local has a light and airy feel."
I'll have to take their word for that, having only seen it briefly in a state of chaos.
Not really a great pint, either, so a bit of a fail all round, our visit to the Beehive.

We walked from there back into the centre of Egham, with one last destination...

The Red Lion (53 High Street, Egham, TW20 9EW)
The Red Lion was packed to the rafters inside too, but with a much more pubby crowd.
There is a reference to a Red Lion on the High Street dating back to 1641 and an even older date-stone amongst some of the red bricks.  It would have once been a coaching inn on the London-Penzance road.

It has had a fair few refurbishments inside since the coaching inn days, becoming a smart and shiny open-plan place, football on the TV screens, lots of Madri and Old Mout cider being knocked back by a crowd of all ages.

I finished the day on the Courage 'Directors', which we used to think was the bees-knees when we drank it in the Withington Ale House as students in the 90's.

And with that, we were back on the train for the trek back through Reading and homeward-bound, several new Surrey Good Beer Guide pub ticks under my belt.

Surrey Pub Explorations

The first of a trio of posts from the county of Surrey, somewhere that I recently discovered I have a grand total of 1 Good Beer Guide pub tick.
I'm not quite sure why I've been avoiding a county that's not far away from Oxford.

Perhaps it's because I'm wary of the richest county in the UK.
Or suspicious of anywhere this size that doesn't have a football league team.

So I set out on a midweek trip, catching the train to Reading, then onward to Guildford.  A quick scoot through the shopping centre, then onto Bus 53.  After all that travelling, my first pub was coming into sight 20 minutes later at next to the bus stop...

Red Lion Inn (The Green, Shamley Green, GU5 0UB)
This is a pub in a great location, with benches out front overlooking one of Shamley Green's glorious grassy open spaces.
Step through the front door and the bar is straight in front of you.  Nice welcome from the landlord, happily giving me details of the three real ales on offer: Crafty Brewing 'Blindside', Surrey Hills 'Shere Drop' or Timothy Taylor 'Boltmaker'.
I picked the local Crafty Brewing amber ale, at a hefty £5.10 a pint.

There were a couple of locals propping up the bar, a restaurant area to the right, and a few tables to the left side of the bar, the best spot by the window taken by coffee-drinking gossiping ladies of the village.  My gripe was that I just couldn't find a spot that I liked.  It wasn't the most cosy of village pubs and I ended up tucked away in a quiet corner where I wasn't particularly comfortable.

I timed my exit to coincide with the next bus passing through the village, back in the direction I'd come from, to Wonersh.
Here's the attempted arty pic of the pub through the shelter...

Grantley Arms (The Street, Wonersh, GU5 0PE)
There is no denying this is a good-looking half-timbered beast of a pub, dating back to the late 16th century in its oldest parts.
But...I just didn't warm to it.
It's one of those places where you're served by smartly dressed staff who greet you with "Can I help you?", rather than "what'll it be, duck", or something similarly pub-like.

 

Cask on offer was Youngs 'Original', Surrey Hills 'Shere Drop', or Hogsback 'TEA'.
You've got to have some of local Surrey Hills beer when in this part of the country, so that's what I did.  Priced at a gentlefolk's dining pub rate of £5.50 a pint.

Scoring 65% 5-star reviews on Trip Advisor, I'm sure if I was reviewing pub food, or ideal inns to sit in an armchair by the fireplace reading The Telegraph, I'd be rating the Grantley Arms highly.
But I wanted less flower displays on the tables and more pub clutter.  For that, I made the short stroll to neighbouring Bramley. 

Past the train station, which hasn't seen a train in many a year.

And onward to the A-road that runs through the village, ridiculously busy with traffic, where you'll find two pubs to chose from.
But only one of them has a pub sign with a farmer riding his pig...

Jolly Farmer (High Street, Bramley, GU5 0HB)

Here's the view as you step through the front door.
Lots going on: nice trad well worn carpet; plates, pewter tankards; pump clips; and a pub museum's worth of old signs, breweriana, and random ephemera covering the walls.

There was an impressive real ale range on offer: breweries included Goldmark from Sussex; Hopstar from Lancashire, Magpie from Nottingham, 4T's from Cheshire, and two from the local Crafty Brewing.  I stuck local with a 'Hop Tipple', on really good form.

Mid-afternoon, there were just a handful of folks spread throughout the sections of the pub, so this wasn't a visit enhanced by a crowd of tipsy folk.  But the pub was still a delight to sit in, with a great chatty member of staff at the bar, and such characterful surroundings.

With the amount of things on display on the walls, I was hopeful for a bit of mild smut in the gents.  But it was decorated with Belgian brewery posters instead...

Then, returning to my seat, I realised the mild smut was out on display in the pub and I was sat right under it

I'd entertained a notion of calling in to the other village pub, a couple of doors along the same road.  But I liked the Jolly Farmers so much that I stayed for a second - the other Crafty Brewing ale this time: 'Grumpsters', a malty, biscuity, best bitter.

The Jolly Farmer was an excellent pub - easily my favourite of the day.
I timed my departure for the next bus back into Guildford from the stop just up the road.

 

Guildford has a population of just over 78,000, and 25 pubs, depending on how you're counting pubs.  Just two make it into the current Good Beer Guide, and I'd run out of energy and time to make it to one in the suburbs.
It was the Royal Oak I headed to, not really standing out due to being lower than street level.  The builders detritus in the driveway isn't doing the pub any favours in the picture, either.

Royal Oak (15 Trinity Churchyard, Guildford, GU1 3RR)
This building was previously an extension to the rectory, which was once located next door.  It became a pub around 145 years ago.

Steps lead down from the pavement, past a couple of outdoor tables, and into a heavily beamed main room.  It was a pleasingly comfortable place with armchairs surrounding a grand fireplace for colder months, and more conventional tables around the sides of the room.

There were a couple of cheery young bar staff, but the two residential terriers were clearly in charge of things...

 

Real ales available were Fullers 'ESB', 'Pride', Dark Star 'Revelation', and Arbor 'Mosaic'.  I opted for the always reliable Arbor, raising an eyebrow once again at the £5.50 price tag.

Then settled myself in a comfy seat, Tipping Point on the telly, Bryan Adams 'Run to me' kicking off the soundtrack, then making way for a bit of Fratelli's and Frannz Ferdinand. 
I guess the playlist had reached the F's.

Just on the other side of the church was the Three Pigeons, which seemed like it may serve a decent range of ales, and certainly looked the part when it comes to photogenic town inns.

Three Pigeons (169 High Street, Guildford, GU1 3AJ)
Its appearance isn't quite as historic as it looks - the building is listed and dates back to 1755, but the facade was rebuilt in Jacobean style in 1916 following a fire.  Apparently the design was inspired by a 17th century building on Oxford's High Street (I'm guessing one a few doors down from the Chequers?)

It's got a bit of a modern feel inside, perhaps due to the spiral staircase, high tables, and TVs.
But it's a decent enough bar, with Landlord, Pride, Doom Bar, and Surrey Hills 'Shere Drop' available at the bar when I visited.
I ordered a second pint of the day of the local Surrey Hills brew, planning to see if it was better here than in Wonersh, except comparing 2nd and 6th pints of the day is way beyond me.

And that was probably my cue to call it a day and head back to the train station to make my way home.  Although maybe there'd be time for a quick half in Spoons on the way.

My first proper pub excursion into Surrey had gone quite well, so I set about planning some return visits.