And lo, it came to pass that it was time for the latest pub crawl around the streets of Bristol. Tim, Tom and I had previously participated in crawls with the theme of water (Thekla, Ostrich etc), old school (Cornubia, Seven Stars etc) and the Gloucester Road (self-explanatory and previously written about here). This time, it was Tim’s turn to choose, and he picked Kingsdown and its environs. Here’s how we got on.

The White Bear

What a transformation since I was last in here, when it was more than just a little rough around the edges. Still a popular student pub, but now appealing to a wider cross-section. Great pink lampshades.

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The Highbury Vaults

It felt more like the middle of the night in the Highbury Vaults as we esconced ourselves in one of its dark corners. Sad not to see the model train steam past us.

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Bar 155

Once again unrecnognisable from its former incarnation. Now it feels like you’re in someone’s living room and very nice it is too.

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The Robin Hood

Only just reopened under a new owner, one of Tom’s old schoolfriends who also owns the Bristol Ram and Clifton Cow. We watched the first half of England vs Ireland. Decidedly average game. Better than average pub.

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The Scotchman & His Pack

More rugby. Best not to talk about it, especially as the landlord is Irish. Fascinating fact: a scotchman was the man employed to walk after horse and carts, when they stopped taking a scotch from his pack and putting it behind the cart’s wheels, preventing it from rolling down the hill – a very important job on a road like St Michael’s Hill.

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The Hillgrove

We doubled back on ourselves up Horfield Road and headed back into Kingsdown. The rugby was soon forgotten as we noted the dozens of beer mats covering the walls of the Hillgrove and scouted out the delightful snug for our next visit.

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The Hare on the Hill

A Bath Ales pub that I had not been to before where we got a warm welcome from the new landlord, recently moved from Keynsham to Kingsdown. Caught the end of the Arsenal game and a sickening leg-breaking tackle.

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The Kingsdown Wine Vaults

A favourite haunt for board games on a Sunday evening when our friend Liz lived just the corner. Fondly remembered for being the place I was told an acquaintance had been the subject of a celebrity love rat story in a national newspaper.

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Cotham Porter Stores

My least favourite stop of the evening, with an extraordinary outside toilet.

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The Green Man

We were getting very hungry at this stage, so after a drink in the Green Man, with greenery bedecked over the bar, we went to A Cozinha where we embarrassingly lasted about two minutes on our table before offering our humblest excuses about higher than expected prices and swiftly exited.

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Colston Yard

An eminently more sensible choice of food-stop halfway through a pub crawl. Our drinks of choice changed from ales to cider as we enjoyed burgers and faggots.

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The Wild Wood

Next door from Colston Yard to The Wild Wood as late afternoon turned to early evening and we once more hit our stride in this very cool bar.

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The Ship Inn

A large pub off the beaten track, but nevertheless very popular. Looking back, it was here things started to get a bit fuzzy.

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The Griffin

A new experience for the three of us. It was karaoke night in the Griffin. We were encouraged to join in, but instead quickly finished our drinks in one of the back rooms.

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The Three Sugar Loaves

Hidden away at the foot of the Christmas Steps, the Three Sugar Loaves was where we debriefed after our previous visit and pondered our next plan of attack.

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The Drawbridge

The decision was made, perhaps foolishly, to continue our crawl on to the centre and up. The palatial Drawbridge was the next venue on the way, where we learnt the football results from the big screen.

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Greenhouse

This was where things definitely went wrong. Tom spotted a fitness coach from his gym behind one of the bars, who kindly sorted us out with some very colourful and very lethal cocktails. Tom had his second as Tim and I stumbled over to the dancefloor to dance to some chart cheese.

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The Woods

When one is in the Woods, one drinks whiskey and we were happy to oblige. We left the main bar to reach the relative quiet of the garden, where who should we bump into but our friend Rupert, half-way through a stag do. He invited us to join them at a gentleman’s club, but we politely declined and had another whiskey.

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Yia Mass

Crossing over Park Street, there was no better place to end our evening than Yia Mass, with Euro pop blaring from the speakers and the place packed to bursting. Even Tom – who last time we came here stood outside with his arms crossed in protest – entered into the spirit of things. I know we either left or arrived at 2am because that’s the time the photo on the right was taken.

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As a homage to the two games of football and two games of rugby that we saw along the way, here are some statistics from our Kingsdown crawl:

Pubs visited: 19

Pubs visited for the first time: Seven

Pubs on planned route that were shut: Two (King’s Arms and Micawbers)

Portuguese restaurants left early: One

Cocktails consumed: Four (one by me, one by Tim, two by Tom)

Whiskeys consumed: Unknown