London Pubs Group

Campaign for Real Ale

Campaign for Real Ale

Gorringe Park

29 London Road,
Tooting Graveney,
SW17 9JR.

Although this pub is not a listed building, it is on the London Regional Inventory of Pub Interiors of Special Historic Interest (also known as London’s Real Heritage Pubs), where the description is as follows: “Right by Tooting railway station, this Young’s corner pub has work of two main periods. The building itself, a three-storey piece of Italianate-style architecture, probably dates from about 1875 but it was given a makeover during the inter-war years, hence the brown and buff tile facing to the ground floor (recently and disgracefully painted over). There are still two rooms, the better of which is the ‘saloon lounge’ (as it calls itself) at the rear which has two-thirds-height fielded panelling, no doubt dating from the inter-war remodelling. The fireplace with small red bricks and the mirror over it, and textured window glass are part of the same scheme, as are the panelled bar counter and the bar-back. A winding corridor leads round to the public bar at the front. Judging by the three extant and former doorways this would no doubt have been subdivided a century ago. The basic matchboard panelling in this room points up the difference between the furnishing schemes between the front and the back. There is an old cast-iron fireplace in the public bar but the counter there looks like a relatively modern replacement. Sadly the counters of both rooms are disfigured by clumpy, modern pot-shelves. The name of the pub is said to have come from an estate that lay in the area before the oceans of bricks and mortar arrived.”

The Gorringe Park featured on the Daytime Crawl of SW17, SW18 and SW11 in October 2004, and the Gorringe, Graveney and Garratt: Daytime Crawl of Tooting, Earlsfield and Wandsworth in February 2010.