Listen. You can tick off Big Ben, pose with the ravens at the Tower, and take 47 identical selfies in front of red phone boxes. That’s all lovely. But until you’ve staggered arm-in-arm down a cobbled alley at 10 p.m. singing half-remembered Oasis lyrics with a stranger named Baz who insists he once sold Liam Gallagher a kebab, you, my friend, have not actually met London.
This is the pub crawl that turns tourists into temporary locals and locals into legends. Six pubs. One night. Zero dignity by the end. Here’s the route that ruined me (in the best possible way).
Total walking distance: ≈ 3.4 km (2.1 miles)
Stop 1: The Starting Bell – Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (Fleet Street)
Rebuilt in 1667, smells faintly of 350 years of spilled ale and journalistic despair. Charles Dickens drank here. So did Samuel Johnson. You’ll drink here too, because the house ale is basically time travel in a tankard. Order the “small” – anything larger and you’ll be asleep by Stop 3.
Stop 2: The Black Friar – A Wedge of Art-Nouveau Madness
Walk in and immediately whisper “what the hell is this place?” because it looks like a deranged monk won the lottery and hired fairies to decorate his living room. Marble friars leer at you from every corner. Drink a London Pride and try not to make eye contact with the one holding the pig.
Stop 3: The Market Porter – Borough Market’s Rowdy Cousin
Opposite the market, open at 6 a.m. for the traders, still going strong when you roll in at 8 p.m. If you’re lucky, the barman will be the guy with the magnificent handlebar moustache who calls everyone “sweetheart” regardless of gender or threat level. Get the porter. Obviously.
Stop 4: The George Inn – Shakespeare’s Local (Probably)
The only surviving galleried coaching inn in London. Dickens again (he really got about). Stand in the courtyard, pint in hand, and pretend you’re waiting for a horse-drawn carriage to Stratford-upon-Avon. Then remember it’s 2025 and you’re just drunk.
Stop 5: The Anchor & Hope – Where the Thames Gets Cheeky
Riverside, noisy, perfect. If the tide’s in, you can practically high-five the water from your table. Order a packet of pork scratchings the size of a small duvet and prepare for the existential crisis that occurs when you realise you’ve eaten half a pig’s face and you’re not even sorry.
Stop 6: The Final Sin – The Rake (Borough Market)
Tiny. Dangerous. 150 craft beers you’ve never heard of and one toilet that has seen things. This is where sensible plans die. Someone will suggest “just one more” at 11:45 p.m. That someone is the devil wearing your new best friend’s face.
The Morning After
You’ll wake up with a mouth like Gandhi’s flip-flop, a phone full of photos of people you don’t remember meeting, and a sudden fluent understanding of Cockney rhyming slang. Congratulations. London now recognises you as one of its own.
You came for the landmarks. You stayed for the stories. And somewhere between the third and fifth pint, you realised the real London isn’t the postcard version – it’s warm beer, terrible decisions, and the stranger who just bought you a shot because “you look like you’ve had a day, mate.”
So yes, by all means see the Changing of the Guard. But save one evening for this ridiculous, glorious crawl.
Because London doesn’t truly say hello until it’s slurring it.
Cheers.
(Now go home, you’re drunk.).
