A Borough and Bermondsey Loop

On a rainy day in London, I headed down to Southwark and devised a rather neat loop from a relatively new Wetherspoon's to take in a few Good Beer Guide entries and some great-looking pubs.

My first stop of the day was Wetherspoon's where I was early enough for a plate of breakfast and a pre-noon pint.
The Sun Wharf is one of the latest additions to Tim's portfolio, opening last autumn. It's somewhere I've been keen to pay a visit to.

The Sun Wharf (50 Tooley Street, London Bridge, London, SE1 2TF)
Why?  Because I wanted to see the transformation of the one-time London Dungeon, somewhere I used to get invited to each time they opened a new exhibit, being as we used to sell Merlin attraction tickets.  It was great fun with good company and no entry fee.
The thing is, it felt HUGE wandering around the recreations of Pudding Street as the Great Fire started and Whitechapel as Jack the Ripper eyed up their next victim.  Yet exploring the pokey corners and various seating areas of the new pub and you realise how misleading those twists and turns and set designs were.

The London Dungeon was based here from 1974 until 2013 when it moved to County Hall.  Wetherspoon's spent £2.75 million converting the vacant space into a pub, opening in autumn 2025.
You'll find lots of brickwork, lots of little exposed ductwork, and lots of little seating areas hidden around corners.  The table plan must have been a headache for the staff on day one.

£4.05 for the guest cask puts this right at the higher end of the JDW pricing scale.
From a choice including a couple of Sambrook's, Windsor and Eton and Brewsters beers, I picked the ever-reliable Salopian.
'1000 Yard Stare'.  The pump-clip suggests it's named after warfare-induced trauma rather than the Slough shoegaze band who my perpetually stoned mate at Uni was a big fan of. 
The 5.2% ABV was bold for 11:30am, but I still think I made the best choice as this American hopped golden ale was thoroughly enjoyable. 

Despite the warren-like layout, I failed to find a cosy corner and ended up on a high table by the archway window where I could check for a break in the rain.

After a quick stroll around London Market - busy as ever - I made my way up Borough High Street to GBG 2026 newbie The Blue Maid.

The Blue Maid (173 Borough High Street, Borough, London, SE1 1HR)
I must have walked past this and ignored it dozens of times.  It's been around a while, first recorded as a pub in 1542 and receiving a mention in Dickens' Little Dorrit.
It hasn't had an illustrious recent past, spending time as a shisha bar and restaurant before closing in 2019.  It's the 2025 reopening which has whisked it into the Beer Guide. 

Being as I rocked up not long after midday, there were only a couple of customers who'd beaten me here, the barman with enough time on his hands to do a little jig to the The Cribs 'Men's Needs'.
Three cask ales from Pillars, Five Points and Burning Sky.  Loads on the keg list, Brighton's Unbarrd (who were involved in the reopening of the pub) featuring heavily alongside the likes of Anspach & Hobday and Kernel.
The intriguing 'Cold Porter' by London brewery Pillars for me.

"A lager in porter's clothing" according to the brewery website, which goes into great detail about the style.  It's a sensible strength Baltic porter - a dunkel to some - an enjoyable brew with subtle coffee and chocolate notes.
The Cribs were followed by the Wombats, Bloc Party and Jamie T, on a playlist created by someone stuck in 2007. 

The Blue Maid didn't stay quite as quiet as in my picture, although the folks dressed in office attire all seemed to prefer the outdoor seating under the awnings despite the rotten weather.
I appreciate a few more punters would make for a bit more atmosphere, but I enjoyed my porter and snuck a bespoke beermat into my pocket, so I was happy.

A little further up the road, past Bermondsey tube station, is the multi-award winning Royal Oak.

The Royal Oak (44 Tabard Street, Borough, London, SE1 4JU)
When Harvey's Brewery acquired this Victorian corner pub in 1997 it was in a run-down sorry state of disrepair.  I think the refurbishment, to a style befitting it's 1850s origins, looks pretty good.

The main entrance leads to a porch with an old off-sales hatch, doors leading in either direction to two rooms separated by a spectacular central bar.
Plenty of Harvey's to pick from, with 'XX', 'Armada', 'Sussex Best', 'Sisters', and 'Old Ale' on offer.  I almost went Old Ale, then spotted this...

Wow!  A dark 5.8% malty brew with a burnt smoky flavour - the 'Bonfire Boy' was beer of the day, hands down.
The next customer in, wheeling his luggage behind him, bonded with the chap behind the bar over Falkirk roots.  He declared the Guinness here on top form, picked the seat next to mine and chatting to me about worldwide adventures, train fares and pubs.
Whoever knew the Scots could be so friendly?

My next stop was a bit of an unknown quantity, picked purely because I was passing close by, it promised a local cask ale, and had plentiful picnic benches outside, which would be useful if the weather took an abrupt turn for the better.

The Roebuck (50 Great Dover Street, Borough, London, SE1 4YG)
An inn has existed on this spot on the London to Dover road since at least 1732, although the Victorian bull-nosed flat-iron building we see today dates to 1892.  It was elaborately designed by architect Edgar Augustine Hawkins with red brick frontage, green domed roof and Dutch gables.

It turned out to be a very typically gentrified pub.  Open-plan, familiar paint colours, abundant plant life, a pricey but interesting food menu.
Beer-wise, the choice was pale ales from Southwark or Big Smoke, or a best bitter from Five Points.

The Five Points for me - on average form.
The Roebuck is certainly worth a look, but it wasn't somewhere I wanted to linger on this occasion.

Departing the Roebuck, I walked to the end of Great Dover Street and turned left at the New Kent Road roundabout.  This bit of my route was bereft of real ale pubs, but I was passing The George which had a Heritage star.
And a description on the CAMRA website that demanded investigation:
"Ungentrified local custom"

The George (40 Tower Bridge Road, Bermondsey, SE1 4TR)
Just in case the grey skies didn't foil the perfect pub picture, the scaffolders have paid the George a visit.
The first thing of note was some lovely 'Truman's Burton Brewed Beers' windows.  There are three ways in, my route through the door on the corner labelled 'Saloon Bar' with additional "Our Toilets Are For Customers Only" signage. 

It doesn't matter what door you go through - the interior is now open plan, enabling you to circumnavigate the central bar.
It's rather lovely.  A grand peninsula counter, lots of wood, magnificent stained glass on the doors to the Office and Ladies (the Gents either didn't warrant an elaborate bit of glass or have broken theirs).

The best features are preserved from the 1930's Truman's rebuild of this corner pub, when they opted to replace the former mid-19th century Sportsman Inn that stood on the site.
Just don't come in expecting exotic craft beer...

I took a seat on the fine benches at the side of the room with radiators behind them - they must be on a great energy tariff as my £3.20 for a pint of John Smiths Smooth is unlikely to cover the toasty heat which demanded outdoor layers be stripped off.

Albert Hammond, Diiv, and Husbands on the sound system confirmed we'd moved forward a decade from the Blue Maid.
The TVs were showing the horse racing channel, but you already knew that.
There were ten or so locals dotted around, half them depositing a shopping bag on a chair before doing the rounds.
"Stop asking if I'm alright," the wine-quaffing lady nearest to me reprimanded her friends, before declaring "Victoria married the most handsome man on the planet."

Prince Albert? David Beckham? David Mitchell? I shall never know.

It was a short hike down the road to reach the turn for Bermondsey Street where I was heading back into cask ale and Beer Guide territory.

The Hand & Marigold (244 Bermondsey Street, Bermondsey-West, London, SE1 3UH)
This Victorian street corner local was constructed around the end of the 19th century.  It took the name from an older hostelry that traded in several locations nearby, named after the ladies who strode out onto the Thames Marshes nearby to pick flowers.  Hunting for marigolds to pick by the Thames in 2026 is likely to end in disappointment.

I entered to Lynrd Skynrd, a friendly welcome, and a choice of ales that required a bit more decision making than the Strongbow-John Smiths conundrum in the George.

The one with the castle on the pump clip, please.  (What, not the dinosaur?!)
My Leigh-on-Sea Brewery 'Castle Black' was a super porter, packing in plenty of flavour for a sub 4% strength.
The keg list was impressive too, including beers from Kernel, Cloudwater, Two Flints and Utopian, a green hopped brew from Anspach & Hobday or sour from Pastore.  The kind of pub where you could very sensibly assess the increasingly heavy rain outside and elect to spend the rest of the afternoon in.

More folks arrived as I sat to one side enjoying a fine beer and a bit of Tom Petty and Blue Öyster Cult.
But I must move on.

The walk down Bermondsey Street confirmed that this is a bit of South London that has well and truly become gentrified...Gail's bakery, ramen, hip coffee shops, seafood and wine bar, pricey hair salons.
And an art gallery ready to be badly photographed..

I walked up this street in October 2025 on my way between Southwark Brewery and The Trinity.  How did I not notice the gallery?
This time I decided to pop my head in.  Nice ceiling display of umbrellas on the main thoroughfare - they'd come in handy with the weather London was experiencing on this day - are they for sale?

Modern art is sometimes challenging.

What an incredible venue, though...

Pulling my hood up, I trundled on to  the bottom of Bermondsey Street and under the railway lines...

Back on the southern side of the station I was close to the Shipwright Arms, somewhere I did visit years ago but it - or at least it's immediate surroundings - have changed beyond recognition.

The Shipwrights Arms (88 Tooley Street, London Bridge, SE1 2TF)
Another Victorian inn, this time dating back to 1884 when George Treacher oversaw the construction of this blue and brick inn with a Caryatid figure supporting the corner bay window.  Or the "bird with one tit out above the door" as I found it described elsewhere - not the kind of uncouth wording you'd ever get on this blog.

At the bar was a relatively rare sighting these days of Doom Bar, but I picked the 'London Pale Ale' from Southwark, brewed just down the road in the railway arches.

"Are you staying inside?" asked the bubbly young lady serving me, despite the need for outdoor plastic pint pots being minimal in the miserable weather. "Silly question, but you never know."
Kelly Rowland's 'Motivational' blasted from the speakers too loudly, competing with the babble of tipsy conversation from the big groups.

The arrival of Wetherspoon's doesn't appear to have affected the Shipwright's pre-train-trip business too much, judging by the crowd on my visit.
The island bar is wonderful. The beer quality good, if not great.  Not a place to finish your Southwark explorations if you're looking for a peaceful pint, though.

It doesn't seem five minutes since I was posting pictures from London with glorious blue sky over the Thames.
I think my luck with the weather has changed for the rest of 2026...