On Saturday night (after leading a walk in St James’s) I managed to fit in the last 3 pubs of Part Z of Londonist’s 2 year alphabetical pub crawl. Out of 26 crawls I managed 10 although unfortunately I was not always able to complete the whole evening.

It was good to finish Part Z in a pub I had never previously visited.  Yards from Borough High Street and St George The Martyr Church (which I have been to) I never knew this pub existed. The Royal Oak, Tabard Street reminded me somewhat (I can’t quite explain why!) of another pub near Waterloo East. After several pints I couldn’t remember the name of the pub nor the street but my description of “Coronation Street style houses” was enough for one of the London/pub aficionados with me to instantly guess correctly. The street is Roupell Street – see the photo below. The pub there is the King’s Arms.

The similarity is possibly because they are both on a corner but I need to re-visit both to double-check.

The Royal Oak has a really local feel to it. Look at the net curtains in the windows.

The Royal Oak is one of only two pubs in London (the other being in Wandsworth) that is run by Harveys the Sussex brewers. 

I know a lot of great pubs in Central London but it’s great to find that there are more to discover. This is the second good one to be added to my repertoire in recent months having been introduced to the Cleveland Arms near Paddington Station via the London Travel Planner.

Looking at Londonist’s list of their favourite pubs in Borough and Bankside I see there are 3 more I don’t know in that area. I may have to spend some of my temping lunchtimes (I am currently temping close to Borough Market) visiting a few more (drinking shandy of course)!