So, we came to our final drinking post of the day, Le Gothique, Royal Victoria Patriotic Building, off Windmill Road. Neither Dan or me had ever known of this place until I read about it in CAMRA's Good Beer Guide, yet it's a well established restaurant, open for many years, within this amazing Victorian gothic building, which was originally an orphanage for dependents of troops lost in the Crimean War; Queen Victoria laying the foundation stone in 1857. It has since had various uses (I remembered it as a school), including an interrogation centre for the British 'Intelligence' services during WWII, near to Wandsworth Prison, but with its own cells, and excecutions!
It is now includes a 'French' restaurant see www.legothique.co.uk - together with a bar that serves real ales...
Dan and Kieran endulging in friendly, lively, and very interesting, discourse with the landlord, above.
We had a couple of pints here to end our perambulation of the Common. They have 3 ales served from handpump, usually an ale from each of Sambrooks, Downton, and Shepherd Neame. Sadly, for me, as I live somewhere dominated by Sheps, there were 2 of their ales on, Kent's Best and Late Red (just the circumstance of beers in the cellar being ready to serve), and we drank Downton Baltic Red, quite appropriate for the prevailing weather conditions outside!
A very interesting, and bountiful, statue commissioned by the landlord, by the large screen tv.
We joined an interesting list of previous customers to Le Gothique, that includes Skin of Skunk Anansie, Billy Piper, Sir Alex Ferguson, Rachel Hunter, Aimee MacDonald, and many more; a very interesting visitors book...
Anyway, that finished our day, and what an excellent time we had. Kieran journeyed back to Watford, Dan to, much closer, Southfields, and me back to Hastings, cheers!
www.drinkaware.co.uk
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