Skylark CR0

The Skylark, Croydon CR0 (London). Pic: J D Wetherspoon.

London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Southeast London: Croydon

Contemporary pub (Wetherspoon)
34 South End, Croydon CR0 1DP
T 020 8649 9909 w www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/home/pubs/the-skylark tw skylarkcroydon
Open 0800-2400. Children welcome if dining until early evening.
Cask beer Up to 10 (Greene King, 8 sometimes local or unusual guests) Cask Marque, Other beer Usual Wetherspoon keg and bottles, Also Real cider and perry, usual Wetherspoon wines.
Food Wetherspoon menu, Outdoor Rear yard, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Regular Wetherspoon promotions, real ale club, brewery visits.

“We love real ale,” announces the chalkboard in this otherwise everyday shopfront Wetherspoons, among a strip of eateries along the southern stretch of Croydon’s main thoroughfare that’s recently been grandly dubbed the “Restaurant Quarter”. You might find that love expressed through beers sourced from Dark Star and local brewers Cronx, imaginative use of the wider JDW guest list and keen participation in the pubco’s festivals.

Further devotion is demonstrated by a real ale club that organises brewery trips and there are other community events and initiatives. Otherwise this huge and typically furnished pub is distinguished by a decent beer garden and a sweeping staircase with art deco stained glass detailing that leads to a large and rather pleasant gallery.

Pub trivia. It could be a reference to Percy Bysse Shelley or a reminder that the site of London’s first international airport is only a short hop away, but in fact the pub name is borrowed from a poem by early modernist Gerard Manley Hopkins, who knew the area well.

National Rail South Croydon Bus Spice’s Yard (numerous West/East Croydon) Cycling LCN+ 23 Walking Link to Vanguard Way, Wandle Trail