Ashburnham Arms

wl0307

United Kingdom (England)

3.44/5  rDev 0%
vibe: 3 | quality: 3.5 | service: 3.5 | selection: 3.5 | $$$

A Shepherd Neame's pub situated in a quiet street in a middle-class residential area nr. Greenwich railway station, making regular entries to the Greenwich section in Good Beer Guide. That's why I decided to pay it a visit on a chilly evening in late Feb. 2006.

From the outside it looks just like yet another old house in line with the style in that area, not like a pub really. Once getting inside, one'd feel a strange and interesting contradiction b/w the atmosphere, decor and the original infrastructure. The front narrow room is occupied by a single bar, with four handpumps serving two-three regulars and a seasonal beer by SN, all on form. Nothing strange here.

But the atmosphere and interior tell a different story: it pretends to be modern and chic, with those contemporary-art (style) paintings, dark-reddish leather covered high chairs, wooden-panelled flooring, light-coloured wall-paints, a low square table with lazy-bone sofas at the side of the pub... on top of a mixture of young posh and mid-aged local residents and sadly wrong choice of music--opera arias, it surely is a very very weird combination! At the first sight one could be forgiven for thinking that it's a modern-ish bar rather than a pub.

Not my cup of tea, for sure. But it's unmissable for a taste of the lengths a desparate landlord could go to attempt at attracting more diverse punters. It probably works. Besides, this pub is quite friendly anyway. In Greenwich pubs shouldn't go (too) wrong, I reckon.

04-29-2006 01:37:36 | More by wl0307