Dulwich Village pubs

It's possible to walk the 3-odd miles between Tulse Hill station and Lordship Lane without coming across a single corner shop, cash machine, takeaway or pub. Such is the bleakness of posh areas. Where do these guys buy their papers, eat, get crisps, have fun? All that meets the eye in Dulwich Village is street after street of giant houses, joggers and huge mechanical hippos ferrying the rich and their children across the college green. A small oasis of some sort of life does exist, however, just beyond the picture gallery, consisting of a pizza parlour, an antiques shop and several organic delis. Looming above all these is the massive Victorian frame of Dulwich Village's only pub, an unreconstructed monster of nineteenth century grandeur. Both attractive and imposing in appearance, it amply demonstrates most of Dulwich's key advantages and faults, having an excellent choice of beer and good food, but also, however, managing to be both outrageously expensive (£7 for a pint of IPA and an orange juice) and full of shouty rich young men, while the non-smoking area seems to have been commandeered as a creche by revoltingly well-turned out couples with their blonde babies, the parents sitting necking white wine and languidly discussing each others' affaires du monde as their darlings run amok under the tables. I feel like I'm in a hideous Stalin-era propaganda film, inciting me to acts of anti-capitalist violence. The sensation continues in the large restaurant area out the back, where improbably expensive meals can be consumed while listening to the rich young men discuss how rich they are and how fun the rugby's going to be, and as yet more small children have fights under the tables. It may be the only pub in the village, but it's worth plodding the weary miles up to the Lordship Lane Harvester just in order to escape. Yes, it's that bad.

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