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.