Windmill, Lambethback to pub details please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
An entirely unexpected find and a real gem. Nice and open at the front, dark and characterful at the back. Pool table, space invaders table, a pint of decent ale was £3.50 which is pretty decent given I was coughing up £4.75 somewhere around Holborn the previous night.
Nicely decorated and friendly bar staff. Plenty of people sitting on the tables out the front despite a bizarre attack of tiny black flies that seemed to be only on this street and no other. Hard to fault this place in any way in truth, though it is in south London and nobody should ever have to put themselves through the terrors of south London just to go to a nice pub like this.
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A really nice surprise find. Quirky, shabby-chic decor, friendly with a decent, good value menu. Dull draught beers despite the intriguing Brooklyn Brewery sign in the window but overall, really liked it.
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Stopped in for a drink - really friendly and efficient staff. Very quiet even after work.
Good atmosphere in a nice dog-eared way, and reasonably kept beer. Food was above average too and good value.
Unremarkable but a nice place off the beaten track.
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Strange sort of place, run by an older couple who gave the impression of being temporary managers. The pint of Adnams was OK, but it is the sort of place that one fears might not be there next time you walk past. Location-wise, if there is anything less like a high street than Lambeth High Street then I have yet to see it (but it certainly ain't in Camberwell).
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Once there was a pub. This pub was close to a civil service building which meant it got a lot of customers at the end of the day, especially on Friday. In the old style there were two bars, a Public and a Saloon, the public on the left and the saloon on the right. In between them there was a serving space where the landlord and his two barmaids poured pints of Courage Best and Directors and called for toasted sandwiches to be delivered down the serving hatch. The thirsty office workers would go down there and line up along the counter in the Public bar - for some reason they never went in the Saloon, possibly remembering their elders' tales of days when pints in the Saloon would cost more than in the Public.
There was no outside space. In those days you could smoke in pubs, and they did. Come Friday the public bar would be awash with smoke and beer-drinkers. Some of them went at lunchtime as well as that was still permissible in those far-off days.
Then the office building was demolished, the people who worked there went their separate ways, and I didn't think about the pub again until just now.
I went back.
Imagine my dismay that the two cosy bars had been knocked through into one, the glass reading SALOON BAR and PUBLIC BAR in the doors had been replaced by clear glass, a new counter has been built at the right-hand wall where the old saloon bar was (though the food hoist is still in its original position, marking where the counter used to be). There is apparently beer on, though all the pumps were turned round: Greene King have taken this pub over, but I don't think all this has happened because it's them. Such 'renovations' happen all over. There are now red sofas and dining tables, and a pointless 'outside' area at the back where they probably used to store barrels.
It could be worse: a lot of pubs have closed down. But the Windmill, Lambeth High Street, isn't what it was when we used to go there.
I had a J20 and a cheese sandwich and remembered the way it used to be.
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i've never actually been in this place considering i grew up less than 10 mins walk away is quite unusual,but this place is tucked away just round the back of Lambeth Palace in what used to be a very quite run down area,i've walked past a couple of times recently as i've had some woprk in the area and it looks like a very nice inviting place,with real ales advertised on the board outside,i just wanted to say that this place is nowhere near Camberwell,it's just near the embankment between Vauxhall and Lambeth bridges
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