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Des de Moor
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Des de Moor

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McDonnell’s

McDonnell’s, London SE18.

Brewpubs closed or no longer brewing

Queen Victoria, 118 Wellington Street SE18 6XY (Greenwich)
First sold beer: October 1983
Ceased brewing: November 1987

Antigallican ( Free House), 428 Woolwich Road SE7 8SU (Greenwich)
First sold beer: December 1987
Ceased brewing: 1989

Licensee John McDonnell installed a malt extract brewery at his Woolwich free the Queen Victoria in 1983. This large pub on the corner of Wellington Street and Rectory Place, behind the Royal Artillery Barracks, had a dating back to at least 1840, but had been rebuilt in Brewer’s Tudor style by Hoare’s brewery, later taken over by Charrington, in 1927.

John recruited brewer Rod Skinner, who had previously worked at Beach’s Brewery at the Market Porter (see Old London Bridge). When Chudley closed in 1984, McDonnell’s acquired its 8 hl kit and upgraded to full mash brewing.

The brewery produced almost entirely cask beers including two bitters, Country (around 3.7%) and Sidekick (around 4.8%), and a seasonal winter ale, Sledgehammer (around 5.6%).

In 1987, the brewhouse was moved from the Queen Victoria to another former Charrington pub, the Antigallican in Charlton, which had been renamed McDonnell’s Free House, and brewing resumed. There were once several in London known as the Antigallican, which means anti-French, largely dating from the Napoleonic period of the early 19th century. The earliest record of the Charlton example is in 1809, though it was extensively rebuilt at the end of the 19th century.

Brewing ceased in Charlton sometime in 1989.

The Queen Victoria closed in 2014: it has since been converted to a hostel with a convenience store on the ground floor and is unlikely to reopen.

The Antigallican, by then the only remaining pub with that name in the UK, closed in 2018. The upper floors have since been converted to flats but there’s a possibility the ground floor may reopen as a pub.

Updated 7 June 2024.

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