please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
A Fuller's house that has remained open. The Red Lion is a landmark building which still offers accommodation and has an interesting history. There are numerous characterful rooms with low ceilings in the pub itself. There appears to be a focus on food. Pride was the solitary real ale. But a Fuller's Espresso Stout on keg caught my eye and was very nice. The barmaid suggested I may have been the first to try it. Another pub that was better than I had anticipated.
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With a pint of Guinness and a Vodka and Coke weighing in at close to a tenner, I shall be saving up before my next visit to this pub. Or maybe I'll head somewhere else. Nothing spectacularly good or bad about the pub or service but it's not the west end, or even the town centre for that matter!
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Supplier is Break Brothers � frozen foods. Resultant pulp is microwaved and charged (or advertised) as either fresh or �home cooked�.
Huge and massively extravagant prices for what is the frozen junk delivered to all Fuller�s outlets.
Frankly, disgraceful.
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Get a life "dalglish". The fact that this Fullers House sells anything other than proper traditional ales is, for unmanly peeps like you, a bonus. The Red Lion is a sh**hole, no doubt BUT Fullers, themselves, do produce some of the finest beers in the UK. Grow up and be manly. We should be preserving English Beer - not knocking it. Don't like it? Fine, go to a Lager lounge somewhere.
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The worst selection of non-real ale beers I have seen in a long time - Carling, Stella, Strongbow and Guinness! Spoilt for choice! Nice looking pub but no real atmosphere.
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A strange place these days, the front bar still has some of the atmosphere of a pub that's several hundred years old, but the modern looking eating areas behind seem totally out of place and spoil the initial impressions. London Pride and service OK, but I visited at lunchtime, and it was not particularly busy.
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I have recently been back.
A large group of us met there for a few drinks - started at 18:30 PM and the last of us left at 02:00 the following morning.
It was not crowded - obviously the "reputation" has reduced the number of customers. Service was quick, beer (London Pride) good, but clearing glasses was slow and the staff not the best I have come across.
It is slowly improving.
Will I return? Maybe - if I want a quiet drink.
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ha avuto un tempo recente in questa citt�. Loveley birra inglese qui. Felice di tutte le persone qui giuseppe normelli
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Bloody awful
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with regard to the last comment i object most strongly - i drink here often and wud describe myself as odd not strange! OK theres been a few accidents in the toilets, but havent we all. The staff, they have a life too. They have college courses to discuss, boyfriends and banging parties to look forward to - your food or drink order must rightly take its turn in their discussion. With so much on their mind, getting the right change is merely a bonus - chin chin
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In a word....DREADFUL. Fullers make me laugh in this respect since they are known as an extremely aggressive employer wanting results BIG TIME, yet they leave this dump to fester with the original ineffectual (speak to you one day, but not the other) manager that's been there since they demolished the old and real pub. Laughing is one thing, but being serious, this place is just plain awful. Prices are ridiculously high; clientele is, at best, �strange�. Toilets are continually defective & the service (from the untrained bints) is AWFUL. Wouldn�t recommend a visit BUT, if you have to (?) avoid 1- 2:30 pm and 7:30 � 10:30 pm. These are also the points at which Fullers should run an announced cellar check
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Wow! None of you seem to like it then!?
Well, it's my local - out of choice.
Beer's ok, service is ok, food - ok for lunch.
Lacks TV, Sky and yobs - brilliant for me and my 30-something friends.
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Regards last comment.....
Yes they were 30 something professionals, but they working to specifications dictated to them by the brewery. I know because my Cousin in Manchester was one of the design team. She apologised.
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This pub has been successfully made over by a team of thirty something professionals who have autocad in their brains and ice in their hearts. Luckily the beer is still good but the food is Brake Bros specials served with an anodyne smile and a "is everything alright with your meal" 3 minutes 30 secs later - what would they say if you told them it tasted like monosodium glutimate and offal from a factory in Ashford?
anonymous - 29 May 2007 01:51 |
its a small pub crap beer and and full of yobs
anonymous - 15 Mar 2007 22:35 |
Used to enjoy the odd pint of Pride or ESB here. I particularly recall spending the evening before a friend's sister's wedding talking to a music journalist about her recent interview and experiences with Motley Crue in the States!
Strangley low level and small bar.
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Its strange how opinion is divided on this pub but I am in the Grossy and TSW camp on this one. I think its a crying shame what the brewery did to this place. I used the pub for years and it was one of the very few pubs in an area full of bland pubs that had any kind of history and character. I`m sure the brewery are only interested in profits but everything that made this pub special has been lost.
anonymous - 9 Jul 2006 21:39 |
Was here last week in the Garden. This pub just gets better, Great Beer, Great Women & Great Craig!! It was good to see no TV in the Bar....good to get away from the Footie just for a while....Come on you Poms!!
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Ruined - I used to go to school just over the road. Used to be a fantastic pub with fantastic beer.
The beer remains good - but they have totally gutted the inside used to be oak panelling etc. Criminal somebody needs shooting.
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Had a fantastic Pint of Pride in this warm & friendly place last week. Followed by an excellent lunch good english beef with the best yorkshire pud outside yorkshire.. Worth a visit, great value, lovely staff.& they must have fixed the leak in the loo to !!
anonymous - 10 Apr 2006 22:55 |
Awful - having been a long term user, on and off, it has gone down hill, or perhaps off a cliff!
As a significant shareholders in Fullers I will be raising this "downmarket" establishment with their directors and at the next AGM.
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Still find it hard to go in here after what they did to this place. It was totally gutted and hundreds of years of history erased, oh well no preservation only progress
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Heard back from Fullers. They are "looking into the situation" LOL.
Visited a number of times since. Not getting any better. �6.50 for a large G&T!! Staff still young and naive and heating unbelievably hot! Sometimes when it�s not cold outside. Beginning to look like it now needs a refurb. Draught beer continues to be good and, at their prices, it jolly well should do. And what�s with that single sole CD they play morning, noon & night?
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Visited 20/1/06. Lots of staff around, mingling, but all disappeared when I went to order a drink. Waited 7 minutes to be served. I DO NOT EXPECT either to be asked if I would like a glass, when ordering Golden Pride - nor did I expect it to be refrigerated. Young naive bar staff of the ignorant impression ..."It is like Budweiser" LOL!! Stayed for 3 more drinks, with friends, no glasses from ANY table were collected during the 3 hours we were there - NOR were any ash trays removed or cleaned. At each and every visit to the bar, no staff was there and a wait of at least 4 minutes for them to appear ensued.
Expensive and staffed by poor quality youngsters. Used to really love this place, when it was a pub. Now it is simply a massively overpriced hotel masquerading as a quality establishment. I have a made a formal complaint to Fullers - THEY HAVE AN AWFUL LONG WAY TO GO.....
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Well SiobhanI have to update my review as I am a regular once more in the Red Lion. The management changed the interior from Crossroads into a more traditional feel...we have got to know the bar staff a lot better and it is now a much better place than on 8th Feb when I posted my first comment!
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It's a great looking building from the outside and the staff for the most part are polite and fantastic (there was a girl in the restaurant, but I was told she is new) & that's about all I can say that is positive about this place. I even tried to give Sunday "Brunch" a go. But to the brains at the Red Lion the word brunch is not a combination of Breakfast and Lunch, but basically their Sunday Lunch menu with the added bonus of a cheese omlette. I am sorry to say the is more "Luneakfast" but I guess this does not look so inviting on the menu. Hey why don't you just call it "Sunday Lunch" and be done with it. I really had hoped this would have been a good place to go, and even with a �10 off coupon I went home.
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I paid my first visit to this pub last Saturday since it became a hotel. Peter Piper is spot on, sadly, this is now a functional, clinical hotel bar with all atmosphere destroyed. In fairness, the beer was good and not over priced and the young lady serving me was friendly and welcoming enough, but I can't see myself rushing here again in a hurry
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I am one of those many locals who now use the Load of Hay. I am sorry to have to report that Fullers have completely destroyed the Red Lion - it is now an anti-septic hotel bar - Crossroads Motel City. It is shameful - they managed to destroy 400 years of history in an 8 month refurb. The takings over the bar are now a fraction of what they were - and some of Fullers HQ management came down one night last week to ask peoples views - am hoping they will realise the error of their ways and restore its former glory! Not a chance....
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This much treasured and listed Fuller's house, is currently closed and is being turned into a Fuller's Hotel. I only hope that it is not "destroyed" in the process. Many of the locals now use the Load Of Hay.
John - 1 Oct 2003 08:04 |
