Mitcham Tour
This tour took place on 5th June 2004, accompanied by Alex.
A housemate of mine was moving out on this day, disintering all the
garden plants, quibbling over the deposit, and so forth,
which made me eager to quit the house. In any case, it was summery, and
our minds turned to refreshment. After conferring over the directory
and map, two tours seemed possible; Beddington and Mitcham.
Public Transport would decide for us, and as the tram was the quickest
of the mark, we went to Mitcham..
Mitcham's character is more or less proportional to its displacement
from its neighbours, which include Croydon, Wimbledon, and Tooting.
The Bull, Mitcham
The Bull is on the far side of a green triangle, which seems to be an
ideal place for teenagers to loiter:
The pub itself is nice -
dartboard, horse races on the big screen, that sort of thing, plus a
beer yard, from which you have a good view of the aforementioned
triangle.
The barmaid had an effect on us, although I'm not venturing this is as
a pub feature. Probably the worst pint of Young's bitter that I've ever
tasted.
The Cricketers, Mitcham
This is about 10 minutes further South - as you walk towards it,
Mitcham becomes gradually more Wimbledonish. The pub is genuinely
opposite a cricket pitch, which I have tried to capture in the
following photo:
On the outside, the pub fits in quite nicely, but indoors, some sort of
Godawful makeover had taken place, rendering it really quite tacky. We
liked it, but the overall opinion was that The Bull and Cricketers were
better suited to each other's locations. The Special was off, but the
Bitter was OK. We stayed for a while gambling on Masters Football on
the TV, and Alex lost a packet on the most one-sided final in Masters
Football history. I'm not even slightly smug.
King's Arms
Boarded up! An ex-Young's!