Picture of Great Northern Railway Tavern, N8 7QB

Historical version 10 of Great Northern Railway Tavern, N8 7QB (view current version)

  • 020 8127 6632
  • 67 High Street, N8 7QB (streetmap) (osm) (gmap) (bingmap) (streetview)
  • 1pm-11pm Mon-Tue; noon-11:30pm Wed; noon-midnight Thu; noon-1:30am Fri-Sat; noon-10pm Sun

A pub on the High Street in Hornsey. It was an Irish pub, but reopened following refurbishment in 2011 and new management arrived in early-2012.

This pub occupies a grand Victorian building overlooking the High Street. Many of the old decor features remain, including ornate ironwork at the entrance, engraved frosted-glass windows, leather-banquetted booths, tiling and mirrorwork. The swirling designs of the ironwork are echoed on ceiling and walls, and there's at least one stained-glass skylight.

The front part of the pub is broken up by steps (and a screen) into two areas, all with a mix or table sizes. At the back is a another larger open space with more tables, some large comfy leather chairs and sofas, and impressive mirrors and antique fireplace photo. There's a beer garden to the rear of this room with access to the lane alongside the pub (and which was being overhauled as of Ewan's visit in March 2012).

As of March 2012 there are two handpulls (one dispensing Purity Ubu, and the other Woodforde's Wherry), with plans for two more handpulls according to the manager. The Ubu was in good condition. Keg lagers were in the process of being changed from standard cooking lagers to more interesting choices (including Kirin and Hoegaarden).

The kitchen was also undergoing refurbishment, so on Ewan's visit only basic fare was available, and he was offered a sausage sandwich (£3.50), which was perfectly decent. A chalkboard listed other basic pub options (burgers and the like), presumably a temporary menu before their kitchen refurb is completed.

Staff are friendly and helpful (and patiently answered my questions about the pub).

Accessibility: A step and a half up to get in at one door (on the left of the photo), and stepfree from there through to the toilets. Can't remember about the other door, but in any case there are a few steps between that side and the toilets. Two steps up and then more steps down to get to the beer garden.

See also:

Last visited by Ewan, March 2012. Opening hours taken from the GNRT website, March 2012.
OS X co-ord: 530554 OS Y co-ord: 189359 (Latitude: 51.587467 Longitude: -0.115296)
This is version 10 (as of 2012-03-26 14:32:19). View current version. List all versions.