Pubs are excellent places to get drinks

[Serial_Apologist]

the Gloucester Arms (nee the Finnegans Wake) on the Gloucester Road.

Well I have a photo of the pub from 1904, and it was called The Gloucester Arms then... so maybe it switched back at some point.

My grandfather had an antiques shop in the row of Regency/early Victorian shops further up that terrace, in the 1920s/30s. In the mid-60s I lived in a bedsit in Elvaston Place - very convenient for the Albert Hall. It's not far from where I was brought up - Earls Court - and with another of my favourite pubs just 10 minutes' walk across Kensington Gardens (The Bayswater - always had a fantastic cold buffet) one of my favourite districts of London. I'd live there again now - if I could afford to.

S-A

[3rd Viennese School]

I go to the Victoria Wetherspoons in the Railway station.

You can't beat it.

3VS

[gurnemanz]

As others have said, Queen's Arms and Imperial College are the best bet within easy walking distance. I don't think any of the RAH bars sell draught ale.

I have a memory of a Prom as a student in the late Sixties. We went to the Anglesea Arms afterwards which was a bit further away and had reputation for good ale. We were most impressed to note that the eminent horn player, Alan Civil, who had just been playing in the concert, had beaten us to the bar.

[Colonel Danby]

Another late night jolly is Janets Bar on the Old Brompton Road: many a time I've ended up there after a prom concert for musical talk after IC bar has closed: again it's not cheap, but the propritoress is a cheerful soul and she'll keep the bar open for as long as there are customers to be served.

[Chris Newman]

Moving away from the Proms season back in the 70s my friends and I decamped from South Ken to the South Bank (Festers as we called it) and the Colly (for opera) in the West End. The latter was cheaper (5 shillings in the gods) and one of our group became an usher and sometimes used to smuggle us into empty seats downstairs at the interval. The Coliseum is surrounded by pubs. The Marquis of Granby (Chandos Place), The Harp (Chandos Place) currently the CAMRA National Pub of the Year and the Lemon Tree (Bedfordbury Street by the stage door) now serves good Thai meals: all these were at the back of the Colly and had bells which rang at the end of the interval...no longer though (too many tipsy brass and viola players... my lips are sealed). We found that the emergency exit stairs brought us down from the upper circle to the Marquis which had a fraction more space and (in those days) good bar meals and tended to attract the strings. The Lemon Tree attracted the brass. Heady times.

[Lee McLernon]

I don't think any of the RAH bars sell draught ale.

You may be please to learn that the bar by door 6 is now the "Spitfire Bar" which, according to the bumpf, "serves Spitfire on draught alongside Asahi, Bishops Finger and other seasonal ales".

[gurnemanz]

Thanks, Lee, for that update which is certainly a welcome development for music-loving ale-drinkers. A quick Google revealed that this is indeed hot off the press.

http://www.businessforkent.co.uk/news/brewery_opens_bespoke_bar_1_964050

[Nick Armstrong]

Caliban the vintage cars have not been there for at least a couple of years.

[Colonel Danby]

Lee, this is good news for us real ale drinkers, but I still think that the prices at the RAH are far too high, and those with tighter pockets are advised to pop across the road to the bar of the IC. That is if it is still open.

Anyway I hope you're enjoying the first night!

[Nick Armstrong]

Spitfire on draught

Just need to add some Adnams Broadside and Ringwood's Old Thumper and I'd be a regular

[gurnemanz]

+ Fuller's ESB and Timothy Taylor's Landlord...

[prokkyshosty]

By the way, thanks all for your suggestions in this thread. I haven't made it to the Queen's Arms yet simply because the IC bar is so convenient and so cheap (though lacking in comfy upholstered bar stools) that I haven't been anywhere else. I'm already stuck in a Proms rut!