Pub 64, Day 25 – The Albion

By Rob

Leaving The Hermitage, we were in the sort of good spirits that only the unexpected discovery of free alcohol can muster up. However, the unbeatable value of £0 per pint meant that we'd lingered there for much too long and, as such, we needed to pick up the pace.

'Why the rush?' I hear you ask.

Well, what Andy so recklessly omitted to mention in his otherwise brilliantly penned blog was that we were due to meet some friends of ours on the nearby (and recently visited) Ecclesall Road. However, we were determined to squeeze a few more pints in beforehand.

'Why?' I hear you cry out again.

Because, ladies and gents, it was time to finally cross London Road off the list.

The insalubrious home of Pubquest fame; the avenue where dreams and nightmares were forged; the birthplace of legends and the domain of lunatics; it was all these things and more. London Road would forever hold a special place in our hearts, but four years on from our first visit, we knew the time was nigh.

According to our calculations, after The Hermitage there was just one pub left to visit: The Old Crown Inn.

Knowing that we had just enough time to knock back one more drink, we strode down the pavement like the oblivious, cocksure fools that we were. After all, the last time we'd visited London Road we were still newcomers to the Pubquest enterprise. Now, however, we were experienced professionals. No longer the naive wanderers; nowadays we did our research beforehand, scoping out the venues, planning the route, estimating the times, carefully scrutinising --

-- Andy stopped dead in his tracks, dragging me from my thoughts.

"What the hell is this?" he said, staring at the building on our left.

I followed his gaze and found myself standing face-to-face with something called The Albion.

"I have no idea," I replied, equally as puzzled.

What was this place? It hadn't appeared on our map and it didn't look much like a pub. In fact, if we hadn't walked directly past the entrance, we probably wouldn't have noticed it.

"Is it a pub?" Andy asked.

Looking up, I pointed to the shiny, plastic sign above the doorway, upon which were the words 'FREE HOUSE' and 'CASK ALES'.

No question there, then.

We stepped through the door and found ourselves in a small, well-lit room. While Andy went to the bar to handle the drink situation, I moved to secure us some seats.

Sitting there alone at the table, I looked around at my surroundings.

Now, excuse my language, but: what a fucking mess.

It wasn't that the place was grotty, or grimy, or dirty, or disheveled, or worn, or rough, or nasty, or scary, or any of the other horrible adjectives that you could readily affix to many of the city's less agreeable venues. No, this pub certainly hadn't suffered from a lack of attention. On the contrary, the pub seemed to be afflicted with a serious case of trying-too-hard.

The first thing to say is that I'm not an interior designer, which in this instance is perhaps a good thing. Somebody with a refined, critical eye for decoration would no doubt find something amiss in most rooms in most buildings. I, on the other hand, am solidly average when it comes to matters of style and taste. Therefore, for me to be so thoroughly offended by the decor of this public house, you know it must have been bad.

And bad it was.

It looked as if the place had been put together by a trio of owners, none of whom could agree on what the pub ought to look like. One of them clearly wanted to run an American bar, and so had put an enormous blue neon sign up on the wall (which looked strikingly like one of those fly-catchers you see hanging up in chip shops).

The second co-owner obviously had something much more old-fashioned in mind, which would account for the series of eerie black-and-white, Victorian-style portraits that lined the other wall. The faded, creepy pictures might have looked perfectly at home on the corridors of some creaky, 19th-century lunatic asylum, but they fared markedly less well in a 21st-century Sheffield pub.

The third, and final, of the stakeholders had evidently been hoping for something much more restrained and contemporary. The hardwood floor, the plain wooden furniture, and the fairy lights that were strung up on the ceiling all suited a trendy student cocktail bar. But in between the electric signage and the Dickensian portrait gallery, they just looked odd.

Oh, and the uncoordinated-style-assault wasn't confined to the visual senses. No, sir. Amidst the American neon adverts, Victorian portraiture, and strings of fairy lights, the sound of repetitive and tuneless reggae music tickled the ears.

Andy arrived back at the table and set the drinks down. He'd elected to purchase us each a pint of Summer Sunshine. Despite my preference for darker beers over paler ales, this particular drink went down very nicely. Light, slightly fruity, and refreshing: I was impressed.

I relayed my thoughts to Andy about the surrounding decor, and he replied with a non-committal shrug, simply saying, "Looks like you've volunteered to write this blog then."

As we made our way towards the bottom of the glasses, we were acutely aware of the fact that the appearance of an unexpected pub had put a serious squeeze on our timescales. It also raised some troubling questions about whether we were quite as clued-up on the Sheffield pub scene as we'd initially thought. 

Little did we know there more surprises yet to come.

Glancing at our watches, we knew it was going to be very difficult to drink a pint in The Old Crown Inn and make it to Ecclesall Road for the appointed time.

But Lord knows, we were going to try...

Pub: The Albion (75 London Road, S2 4LE)

Rating: 5.5/10

Pint: Summer Sunshine

Brewery: Old Mill Brewery (Snaith, East Yorkshire)

NEXT UP: The countdown begins, at The Old Crown Inn...