On Wednesday 20 August CAMRA’s London Pubs Group visited four pubs in a short tour of the Clapham Common Old Town area that were candidates for inclusion on CAMRA’s Local Inventory of pubs with local historic interest. First was the Prince of Wales. This is primarily of interest for its two superb tiled fireplaces featuring ceramic images of beer barrels and falcons, the latter being the emblem of the former Lacon’s Brewery. It is a single bar corner pub, distinguished at night by its exterior blue neon ‘POW’ sign, while the interior is adorned with hanging traffic lights, old school desks, stuffed animals and all manner of bric-a-brac. The pub dates from around 1884 and is described in the Clapham Society’s The Buildings of Clapham as having a ‘pleasant mini neo-Queen Anne doorcase’. This pub is in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide 2025 and offers a 10% discount on cask beers for card-carrying CAMRA members. Greene King Old Speckled Hen, Harvey’s Sussex Best Bitter and Timothy Taylor Landlord are normally served here.
Although based at Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, Lacon’s Brewery once had at least 14 pubs and 11 off-licences in London. They were acquired by Whitbread in 1965 and closed by them in 1968. The Coach & Horses in Soho and the Coborn in Bow appear to be the only other surviving ex-Lacon pubs in London, although the former Builders Arms in Canonbury, now converted into flats, still displays its Lacon’s signage. The brewery, still in Great Yarmouth, was revived in 2009 after enthusiasts acquired the rights to the Lacon name from AB InBev and a new range of beers was launched under that brand in 2013.
The next call was the Rose & Crown. This pub is a candidate for inclusion on the Local Inventory because of its fine exterior, with a green and gold Simonds livery announcing its ‘NOTED ALES & STOUT’
Behind the fine Simonds façade lies a thoroughly modern interior, although it makes use of traditional materials including wood and stained-glass. There is also a large restaurant area to the rear. Reading-based Simonds amalgamated with Courage & Barclay in 1960, to become Courage, Barclay, Simonds & Co Ltd with the name being simplified to plain Courage Ltd in 1970. This is a three-storey, 19th century public house with an early 20th century terracotta faience front. The Clapham Society say this has been a pub since c.1870. Rose & Crown Ale (probably Greene King) and Timothy Taylor Landlord are normally served here.
From here it was a short walk across the road to the Sun. Its inter-war stained-glass windows showing evidence of its former Charrington ownership are the feature that makes it of local historic interest. The pub dates from c.1880 and replaced an earlier one on the same site. It was originally in the centre of a row but the cottages that stood on the present courtyard-garden were destroyed by a bomb in the Second World War, together with the adjacent church. The front bar is completely opened out and decorated in a restrained gastropub style. There are separate drinking areas at the rear. The pub remains something of a landmark in the Old Town and looks out directly onto the Old Town bus stand where, appropriately, route 88 terminates. This was the service that was marketed as ‘The Clapham Omnibus’ by the London General in the mid-1990s. Fuller’s London Pride and Timothy Taylor Landlord are normally served here.
Our final destination was outside the immediate Old Town area on Clapham Common South Side. The Alexandra is a Grade II listed building with a fabulous exterior that includes a dome and polychromatic brickwork. Designed by Edward l’Anson in 1863, it was converted to a public house c.1876, at which time the flanking wings became separate properties.
Sadly, all the original interior fittings have been destroyed in successive refurbishments. Nevertheless, CAMRA’s website describes it as an ‘unusually atmospheric pub with separate drinking areas around a large central pine bar. Bare brick walls adorned with old advertisements; wooden floor and wooden furniture’. The pub was also formerly part of the Courage estate and takes its name from Princess Alexandra of Denmark who married Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1863 and went on to become Queen Consort in 1901. Greene King Abbot is normally served here, although mostly at weekends.
Kim Rennie and Jane Jephcote