Pubs of Barnes

Barnes retains a remarkably strong pub culture for its size: nine pubs currently trade within a compact village area, ranging from a seventeenth-century riverside inn to a Michelin-listed gastropub. Four are owned by Young’s brewery, whose Ram Brewery in nearby Wandsworth supplied Barnes for over a century.

Young’s Connection

When Charles Young and Anthony Bainbridge purchased the Ram Brewery in Wandsworth in 1831, the Coach and Horses on Barnes High Street was among their early pubs – one of the longest continuously held brewery ties in London. Young’s later acquired Ye White Hart (1857) and the Bull’s Head (1896). Young’s ales were delivered by drayhorse until the brewery closed its Wandsworth site in 2006.

The Pubs

The Sun Inn (7 Church Road) – Grade II listed. Built as a Georgian coffee house, it has served beer since about 1776. Overlooking Barnes Pond, it forms the visual heart of the village together with the Green and St Mary’s Church.

Ye White Hart (The Terrace) – A pub since 1662, rebuilt in its present four-storey Victorian form in 1899. In the 1860s it was headquarters of Barnes Football Club, where balls and equipment were stored. Today it offers one of the finest vantage points for the Boat Race.

Coach and Horses (27 Barnes High Street) – A former coaching inn first recorded in 1776. The back room was once a skittle alley, and the toilets are still in the old stables across the courtyard. Its beer garden, entered through a grapevine arch, is the largest in Barnes.

The Bull’s Head (373 Lonsdale Road) – Dating from the 1840s, it became one of Britain’s most important jazz venues in 1959. Humphrey Lyttelton performed monthly for forty-two years.

The Red Lion (2 Castelnau) – First recorded as “The Strugglers” in 1718, destroyed by fire in 1835 and rebuilt in Victorian style. Now a Fuller’s pub near the entrance to the Wetland Centre, its interior features a coloured mosaic domed ceiling and stained-glass windows.

The Brown Dog (28 Cross Street) – An independent gastropub in a building dating from 1898, formerly known as The Rose of Denmark. Its name references the Brown Dog affair of 1903–1910, a vivisection controversy in Battersea.

The Waterman’s Arms (375 Lonsdale Road) – Originally built in 1850, it reopened in September 2023 under Joe Grossmann and chef Sam Andrews. Listed in the Michelin Guide and ranked among the UK’s Top 50 Gastropubs, it has put Barnes on the London dining map.

The Crossing (73 White Hart Lane) – Opened in 2021 by Christian Arden in premises formerly known as The Tree House, with a kitchen overseen by Anthony Demetre. A modern independent gastropub with a daily-changing menu.

The Bridge (204 Castelnau) – A Young’s pub near Hammersmith Bridge with a historic Boathouse Dining Room, a walled garden and eight boutique bedrooms.

Lost Pubs

The Idle Hour on Railway Side, a tiny pub down a narrow pathway, closed on 1 February 2016. The Boileau Arms on Castelnau, dating from 1842, went through several identity changes before closing around 2009; the building became a nursery in 2015.

Sources

1. The Bull’s Head, Barnes – Wikipedia
2. Sun Inn, Barnes – Wikipedia
3. Young’s – Wikipedia
4. CAMRA – Campaign for Real Ale
5. Top 50 Gastropubs