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Star & Garter

62 Poland Street
Soho
London
W1F 7NX

• (020) 7437 9278

Opening Times

Owner

Ei Group

About the Pub

Proper pubs are becoming hard to find as the gentrification of Soho continues apace, so this one, just off Oxford Street, deserves support. Formerly a Courage house, it has a small, cosy, wood-panelled bar area with a matchboard ceiling and a selection of prints and knick-knacks on the walls. An overspill bar upstairs is usually open on Thursday and Friday nights to cope with the throng. The handpumps dispense an unvarying choice of London Pride, Greene King IPA and a guest beer to an appreciative clientele of regulars who live or work nearby, and Soho's many visitors.

The pub has been run by Kelvin and Angela Barrow for some 30 years and has seen little change since earlier incumbents, Connie and Alan Jones, who feature in one of the many photos, pictures, playbills and more left in 1980 after 22 years. In their day the pub was described as having 'the intimacy of a village pub combined with the atmosphere of a famous rendezvous', with 'always something delicious to eat - morning and evening.' Nowadays filled rolls are available Monday to Friday until they run out.

Historic Interest

There has been a public house here since at least 1825 when its name but it may have been first licensed in 1814. According to the Survey of London, it "is outwardly an early nineteenth-century building with a three-storeyed front. In the ground storey is a contemporary wooden public-house front having narrow pilasters which support a fascia, the latter finished with carved bracket-stops. The upper storeys each have two flat-headed windows, but the brickwork has a much later cement facing with window-surrounds of the same date". In 1986 this was the Soho Clarion's Pub-of-the-Year and the Spring 1986 edition features a youthful Kelvin receiving his £75 award of a free bet from bookmakers William Hill. The Clarion approvingly comments that "So often refurbishment means modernisation and a general loss of character. In this case, however, the brewers have done an excellent job providing at the same time more space and a most pleasing decor. On a note of interest, displayed on the wall area, are the original beer pumps that were only taken out last year." Those original pumps still remain on display and the front windows are still picked out in gold lettering with 'COURAGE BEST BITTER' and 'COURAGE DIRECTORS BITTER'.

Regular cask ales

This pub serves 2 regular beers.

• Fuller's London Pride
• Greene King IPA

Changing cask ales

This pub serves 1 changing beer.

Changing beers typically include:

• St Austell Tribute

Updated on 05/03/2020
Last surveyed on 05/02/2020
Branch responsible is West London

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