Overview

Bad toilet, bad staff attitudes, a dismal experience overall

Transport & Parking

Clapham Junction station is a few yards away, and is theoretically fully step-free, though the lifts often break down and the staff are unreliable and there are many features about the station which make it not really properly accessible, not least the outrageously steep subterranean slope near the lift to Platform 1. Zillions of bus routes serve the area, so it's altogether quite transport-rich. I wouldn't dream of trying to park nearby!

Access

The main entrance to the pub is step-free but the doors are heavy and cumbersome. There is room to move around the bar. One large area is raised and reached by a set of steps. There is no signage for the accessible toilet, which is hidden behind some blank double-doors. Tables are wheelchair-friendly on the whole.

Toilets

Zero stars for this disgraceful toilet. 1) There is no signage directing you to the accessible toilet, which is hidden behind a set of double doors. 2) There are mops and buckets behind the double doors which obstruct them and make it very hard to open them and get through them to reach the corridor where the toilet is situated. 3) This is a thick piece of ancient broken lino which obstructs the bottom edge of the toilet door, so that it's impossible to open it fully in order to get enough clearance to enter the toilet comfortably. 4) The red emergency cord was tied up into a complex web of knots on the raised grabrail, well out of reach and unusable. This is stupid and dangerous. The red cord must hang freely all the way to the floor so that it can be pulled in the event that someone falls over and needs to summon assistance. 5) The staff I spoke to have no understanding of any of these issues, least of all the red cord issue.

Staff

I was not at all impressed with the staff. All of them regarded me, and my comments, as an annoying inconvenience. Zero stars One barmaid was shockingly rude and contemptuously off-hand. Another one was equally rude and off-hand, and when I asked her to accompany me to the toilet, so that I could show her the problems outlined above, she came along grudgingly and was not friendly or positive. She took on board the points I made about the toilet's inadequacies, promised to tell the general manager, who would be coming in later, but didn't tell him. I spoke to the general manager later, he was also rude and offhand, and for each point I mentioned about the accessible toilet, he was initially defensive, instead of listening intelligently and openly. Worst of all, when I told him about the red emergency cord issue, he started tucking the red cord well out of the way behind the cistern. I was shocked. "What are you doing?!" I exclaimed, and I explained to him something he was totally unaware of: that the red emergency cord must hang freely, within reach, all the way to the floor.

Anything else you wish to tell us?

I never want to go to this pub again.

Photos