Fox on the Hill, London SE5
London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Southeast London: Camberwell, Dulwich and Peckham
Contemporary pub (Wetherspoon)
149 Denmark Hill SE5 8EH
T 020 7738 4756 w www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/home/pubs/the-fox-on-the-hill
Open 0800-2300 (2400 Fri-Sat). Children very welcome until early evening.
Cask beer Up to 13 (Greene King, up to 11 guests) Cask Marque, Other beer Usual Wetherspoon kegs and bottles, Also Real cider/perry.
Food Wetherspoon menu, Outdoor Very large gardens, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Wetherspoon promotions.
This huge and rather forbidding red brick pile, built in the 1930s for Charrington’s, broods at the top of Denmark Hill between Camberwell and Dulwich. It’s around the corner from the Salvation Army training college with its landmark brick tower, though I doubt much custom comes from this particular source. Kings College and the Maudsley hospitals, a little further downhill, are more prolific sources of regulars, and pretty Ruskin Park across the road brings strolling families by. In fact the pub’s own outdoor space is equivalent in size to a small public park, encompassing an extensive front terrace with a grassy picnic area beyond, and a similarly generous rear garden complete with playground. The labyrinth of spaces indoors affords seating capacity of German beer hall proportions.
Since 1993 the place has been that rarity, a J D Wetherspoon branch that was actually built as a pub in the first place, and it’s one of the better examples of the chain. There are no less than 16 handpumps, though some dispense cider, and some double up except during JDW festivals or at the pub’s own occasional mini-festivals featuring local beers. Otherwise, regularly changing guests might come from Coach House, Exmoor, Mordue, Rhymney, Titanic and many others. In contrast to the usual open plan Wetherspoon style, there are plenty of tucked away spaces in which to enjoy them.
Pub trivia. The pub succeeded another, now demolished, further down Denmark Hill and known as the Fox under the Hill. Now there are once again foxes in the vicinity, the name seems more appropriate than when the current pub was first built.
National Rail Overground Denmark Hill Cycling LCN+ 23
Now that they are buying more pubs from distressed pub companies, a Spoons that was built as a pub is much less of a rarity than it used to be. The classic Brewer’s Tudor Black Horse in Northfield, Birmingham, originally built for Davenports, is a good example.
They’re still a relative rarity in London though. I think out of all the ones I’ve researched over the past couple of years or so, only four have been in purpose built pub buildings, and one of those (the Drum in Leytonstone) was one of their very first pubs.