Popination Sensation

a series of unhinged personal essays disguised as pub reviews. Today: London Popinations PART FOUR!

Popinations covered in today’s entry: Traitor’s Gate, Fox & Anchor, and Golden Goose (in Leadenhall Market).

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Continuing into the wonderful collection of Popinations I experienced when in London on my honeymoon, I realize that this is starting to feel like a ton(ne) of pubs, innit. But like: it really was just one or two (or maybe three? Time is a blur) per day as we newlyweds debriefed after whatever amazing London city walk and beautiful historical monument or museum we’d absorbed beforehand.

I was chuffed to find

Jennifer Granville

commenting a couple weeks of Popinations ago on how she’s psyched to hear about which pubs will come next on my list. How can you live in London and still be interested, I wondered? I suppose it’s such a giant city (as she said: more of a series of villages all in one), and I can fully imagine you could live there for several years and still feel like a trip to an attraction across the city would feel like a major exotic vacation. Or is that ‘holiday’?

Traitors’ Gate? Or like, Traitors plural? Is it the Gate of the Traitors, or?

I’m a sucker for cool old stuff, even if it’s cosplay, and I loved the gothy decor of Traitors Gate. I mean, not literally Visigoths; more like historical figures centered on violence, almost like ghosts were there with us having a pint. We were there right after touring the Tower of London itself, of course, so it fit the vibe just right. I say ‘the Tower,’ but my intense claustrophobia and terrible knees prevented me from mounting the terrifyingly narrow and close spiral staircase that led to the torture room, as much as I did want to see the displays within. But seeing the ravens and walking through the other prison cells with their framed and protected wall graffiti scritchings, the military museum, and of course the Big Sparklies (the Crown Jewels) made for a wonderful Tower experience anyway.

Seriously – I very much doubt I’d have been able to fit up those wee winding stairs at all – everything seems to have been made so much smaller back in ‘the day’ (even as late as some of the Victorian spaces we found). I am not built for these ancient buildings; I’m way too big.

The Fox & Anchor had been recommended to us by a work friend of my husband’s and so that’s why we made sure to find this one and sample it. It was…well, it was meh. It wasn’t bad. They poured a good pint, and it looked like their food was high quality, though we didn’t sample any. But it was kind of boring (as much as any very English pubby-looking pub can be for this n00b yank still), and its staff was especially surly.

Actually most of the bartenders we encountered throughout our proliferate Popinations were really warm and friendly, even when hearing our American accents. But those at the Fox & Anchor were, in a word, so hipster as to be consistently morose, and almost too good to deign to serve the lower order of being that is a customer. But this was such a different experience than so many of the other pubs, both higher and lower end than it, that I don’t really have much patience for it. Plus, if I want cranky hipster servers that think they’re better than me, I’ll just go back to my hometown of Boulder.

It was a beautiful little outdoor market (mall?) but way smaller than we expected.

Leadenhall Market we’d heard about as a cool little historical preserve, and something pretty and jewel-like nestled in the city, and was told that it was not to be missed. The market area was smaller than we expected but was quite beautiful, and felt like the kind of place you could hang out for a few hours at, perfectly happily. And indeed, we noticed that many work-type folks were popping in as we had settled, it being a sort of late afternoon time of day. I imagine if I worked or lived in this area I’d frequent it too. And once the shops and restaurants and pubs opened up for lunch, we went into the Golden Goose for a pint. It was advertised as being independent, which I’m learning after several pub explorations is a thing – pubs are usually owned by various breweries, it seems, and this one wasn’t. Which I guess is unusual enough that it was a selling point.

Think this is the last of the London Popinations in this newsletter? Oh ye of little faith. Stay tuned next week for the highlight of all the London pubs I Popinated to, the one that was the most interesting, comfy, and the biggest historical adventure of our whole trip. Which pub am I talking about? You’ll have to come back next week to see.