A new poll by a body called ‘Action for Smoking Health’ (or ASH, which is very clever), has found that 62% of Britons want to ban smoking in pub gardens. This is a bit like wishing to ban baking in bakeries, or eating in restaurants, or living in the past. Isn’t that just what they’re for? In the comments section beneath The Telegraph’s report on the matter, someone called Tony said that the “English pub garden is the absolute peak of Western Civilisation”, and I completely agree that the problem with the Sistine Chapel is that there aren’t enough QR codes or water-logged black plastic ashtrays on the tables. It puts one in mind to launch an action body of one’s own, perhaps: the ‘Campaign for Inhaling near Grandchildren and Sharing platters’, or simply ‘CIGS’.
By way of a soft launch of this initiative, then, I cast around among friends and smokers (but I repeat myself) for the truly great pub gardens in the city — a list which, like the timer on the newly installed outdoor heater which burns the top of your hair while leaving the rest of your body entirely freezing for some reason, was surprisingly short.
A good pub garden is the one where the neighbours hate you, and so it’s pleasing that The Windsor Castle in Notting Hill was long ago forced to erect signs that say ‘Please Leave Quietly’ and ‘No Really Please Stop Saying Maaaate So Loudly Hugo’ due to the shattering volume of the bo-ho chins. A lovely hodge-podge of worn old paving stones and hanging vines, the garden here has a decent outdoor bar and, unlike the actual Windsor Castle, a proper family feel.
Clad in its talismanic wisteria and hushed with leafy corners, The Albion’s garden is a classic of the genre — a proper sun trap / chore jacket mosh-pit, where certain primo tables have a longer waiting list than Eton, or whatever the guilt-free Islingtonian equivalent is nowadays.
The Roebuck’s great strength is not necessarily in its garden but in its majestic view: a strange, beautiful, time-machine vista of rolling green hills, ancient trees, and the curving might of the tranquil River Thames, set in front of a series of staggered benches which positively glow at golden hour. Is there a finer place in the world to contract tax-inefficient emphysema?
A courtyard garden in front of a handsome Georgian townhouse, The Flask dates from 1663, and it's said that Karl Marx, William Hogarth and highwayman Dick Turpin drank there over the centuries. Its Wikipedia page notes that “the pub is said by some to have a female ghost” and quite right too, while also claiming that, in 1736, “a 64 year-old man, accompanied by a hairdresser, ran from the Bull's Head in St Giles to The Flask in just 45 minutes,” though nowadays it takes about 22 on a Lime Bike.
Very much the ‘Hanging Gardens of Harringay’, the Faltering Fullback’s garden is a maze of wooden walkways and blossoming greenery beloved by the sort of lairy Rugby fans who also enjoy large format Perello olives. Like all classic Irish pubs, it serves great Thai food.
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Issue 15
A summer guide for those who’d rather avoid the algorithmic parade of beach clubs, bottle service and barefoot saxophonists in Saint-Tropez. We asked five famously well-travelled friends for the destinations they’d quietly return to tomorrow
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