Kings Arms SE1

London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London — Southbank

Kings Arms, London SE1. (c) Dr Neil Clifton and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons license.

The Roupell Street Conservation Area is one of central London’s true hidden gems. Tucked between the National Theatre and Waterloo East are several lengthy and almost entirely unspoilt terraces of workers’ cottages developed between the 1820s and 1840s by John Palmer Roupell, sympathetically framed by lamp standards in Victorian style. If it looks a bit like a set from a prestige BBC period drama, that’s probably because you’ve seen it featured in several such productions.

Halfway along Roupell Street itself and pleasingly breaking up a long row of identical façades is this corner pub, built as part of the original development to serve the estate. It retains its smallish, partitioned public and saloon bars, lettered in an incongruous 1960s font that recalls a past life as an Ind Coope house. Space extends to a backyard converted into a conservatory, decorated with curiosities including plates, vintage boxing posters and little quotes praising the virtues of wine. This operates independently as the keenly priced Yvonne’s Thai Cuisine, though stools and shelves to the side accommodate drinking overspill from the bars.

This charming pub’s beer offer has fluctuated over the years but has recently improved with a wide and infrequently changing choice of cask beer including several from the various subsidiaries of Marston’s. When I last looked it included classic Midlands mild Banks’s Original, a rare sight in London, plus Brakspear Oxford Gold, Jennings Cumberland Ale, Ringwood Boondoggle, alongside Adnams Bitter, Caledonian Deuchar’s IPA and Dark Star Partridge, with Sambrook’s Wandle providing a local touch. While it’s often busy with well-informed commuters and visitors to nearby attractions like the Southbank and the Old and New Vic theatres, it stands sufficiently apart from all of these to retain a community feel.

National Rail, Underground Waterloo Cycling NCN4, LCN+ 6, 6A, 7 Walking Thames Path, Jubilee Greenway, Jubilee Walkway