Rough As Fuck Pubs

[peteprodge]

If you're in Jersey, give The Dog & Sausage in St Helier a miss.

It's a tiny boozer that's like a Jim Davidson wet dream, just about every inch of it is covered in memorabilia celebrating Are Brave Boys, and what's not covered in that, is covered in dirt. It's like an amalgamation of every rough pub I've ever been into, distilled into this single rough-arsed pub.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

https://www.christopherfowler.co.uk/blog/2016/05/07/around-under-piccadilly-circus/

[Mr Banlon]

The Hillingdon Arms in Hillingdon : Was the HQ for a local criminal family, and if you weren't in their crew, or there to do business with them, you definitely weren't welcome.
Bentleys in West Drayton (any pub in West drayton is rough, but Bentleys was the roughest)
The Reindeer in Northwood : A boozer frequented solely by coke dealers and their customers
The Crown, Hayes : Boiled bacon boozer

[idunnosomename]

If you're in Jersey, give The Dog & Sausage in St Helier a miss.

It's a tiny boozer that's like a Jim Davidson wet dream, just about every inch of it is covered in memorabilia celebrating Are Brave Boys, and what's not covered in that, is covered in dirt. It's like an amalgamation of every rough pub I've ever been into, distilled into this single rough-arsed pub.

sure i drank in there once. Funnily enough i remember going in a right rough arse pub in St Helier. Just had pure piss on tap and awkwardly had to walk out again. At least dog and sausage had cask, that's all I remember

Not sure there was a great deal of choice in St Helier really!!

[The Crumb]

https://www.christopherfowler.co.uk/blog/2016/05/07/around-under-piccadilly-circus

Wards Irish House. Used to drink there in the '70's. Great Guiness with shamrock carved in the head. Once watched a group of people torturing a rat to death on their table.top. Great seedy memories!

Well after many hours of fun and entertainment round the rack in the early hours of one morning my mate noticed a big mouse fight going on on the top and middle shelves of dunkin donuts. It was awful, these creatures were biting each other and scrapping. Driven mad by the sugar I suppose .....

Proper rodent carnage before PC went mad

[mr. logic]

That weird Rangers F.C. pub in Scarborough

[JaDanketies]

I used to check GMP press releases regularly and I remember spotting someone I thought my ex knew in the 'find the absconder' section.

Shortly afterwards at the Yates next to Portland Tower, I was there with my ex and we spotted her! She was with a bunch of lads, and she was getting increasingly mouthy and aggressive. She ended up chucking a glass at one of these guys, and they responded with one of the biggest slaps I have ever seen. Usually people would be like "don't hit a girl" but she kinda deserved it and the whole group were some scary fuckers.

...


I used to work in a pub that was known as rough as fuck. I guess I've got a million anecdotes from it, but the most interesting thing is how we used to buy off-label vodka and switch it with the pubco's stuff, and then put all the money we got from vodka sales under the till. Did that with loads of shit, but at least when you tole Coca Cola profits from the pubco, it was still what the customer ordered. And the landlords were proper shitty about 'spillage' too, and would encourage you to slip the overspill into drunks' pints. Shoplifters selling their wares all the time. Some gang figured out how to loot the gambling machines, obviously I didn't do anything about it. Regular flouting of the smoking ban. Racist and violent patrons and a load of regulars who were obviously severe alcoholics. I never really thought it was that terrible though, I enjoyed the atmosphere.

[MojoJojo]

Glad to see from pictures that the flat roofed pub rule still holds true.

[king_tubby]

Amusingly, as Shoulders has put it in the good pubs thread, before it was taken over by Kirkstall Brewery the Cardigan Arms was rough as fuck.

The combination of the PubCo owners wanting rid to sell for flat development (Greene King, iirc) and the closure of the Queens Head (criminal), Rising Sun (NF) and Haddon Hall (criminal) in the immediate area meant it went from being an alright old man's pub where people used to put small gigs on upstairs (saw the likes of Nadja, Chris Corsano, Skaters there, people stopped bothering after punters kept getting threatened, punched and in one case glassed when daring to get a drink downstairs). Though you could buy steaks off junkies who'd just robbed them from the Aldi opposite.

Anyway, I went to a meeting there when there was a community group trying to take it over. As they were earnestly saying they wanted to keep the locals but expand the range of the clientele the landlady's voice boomed over the Tannoy 'which one of you dirty bastards has shat all over the bogs?'.

It's very nice now.

[kalowski]

An oldie but a goody. Dunno where it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P5YCZF1d_Q

God thar reminds me of The King on Oldham Street in Manchester city centre. (Gone now. The pub, not the city centre).

[SpiderChrist]

Cambridge used to have The Jenny Wren, The Snowcat and The Blackamoor's Head. All gone now, thank fuck.

[Blue Jam]

The Grapes, Edinburgh:

[jamiefairlie]

Glad to see from pictures that the flat roofed pub rule still holds true.

Why is that? Which is cause and which is effect?

[jamiefairlie]

That weird Rangers F.C. pub in Scarborough

All Rangers pubs everywhere.

[Blue Jam]

Why is that? Which is cause and which is effect?

Isn't it that they're rough estate pubs which remain after the surrounding estate has been knocked down?

A Rough Pubs Checklist usually appears in these (glorious) threads:

1. Flat roof
2. Named after a celebrated literary figure
3. The more machines, the rougher the pub: Not even a telly- bit posh. Fruit machine- mid-range. Cash machine- get the fuck out
4. More than one mobility scooter parked outside
5. Any reference to a "lounge" in the signage

[seepage]

The Hillingdon Arms in Hillingdon : Was the HQ for a local criminal family, and if you weren't in their crew, or there to do business with them, you definitely weren't welcome.
Bentleys in West Drayton (any pub in West drayton is rough, but Bentleys was the roughest)
The Reindeer in Northwood : A boozer frequented solely by coke dealers and their customers
The Crown, Hayes : Boiled bacon boozer

You left out The Woolpack, Hayes: #MondayMotivation #Strippers - 1pm: Isobella, Tiffany Janinie and Nicky. 4pm: Bia. 5pm: Claudia. 7pm: Alice, Tiffany, Lina and Tina.

[A Hat Like That]

Might have been the Dubliner or Hennessy's (though I think they cleaned that up now); to be honest all the pubs in Digbeth are decent with nice folk in them generally; Digbeth btw is on the up now and is becoming quite gentrified now.

About to say something like this. It's my second favourite area in Brum and all the older staff at work stare at me like I'm sniffing glue or dogging or something when I say I drink there.

The Mercat though does still look like in the photo.

[TrenterPercenter]

Another one of my former locals.



Rough.

[A Hat Like That]

That weird Rangers F.C. pub in Scarborough

There's more than one, as well.

[TrenterPercenter]

And another; used to walk past this to get to college in the morning where there would usually be a man in van outside selling knocked off meat.



Rough as fuck round there.

[Ferris]

Another one of my former locals.



Rough.

Reminds me of a flat roof boozer I grew up near. Car park was full of pissed up kids, sort of 13-15 age range. One would go in to get served, buy like 12 pints of lager, walk them into the car park and away they'd all go.

How do I know how the system worked? Couldn't possibly say. Still at it though, can't believe the pub hasn't been rumbled yet, it's literally next door to a police station.

[TrenterPercenter]

About to say something like this. It's my second favourite area in Brum and all the older staff at work stare at me like I'm sniffing glue or dogging or something when I say I drink there.

The Mercat though does still look like in the photo.

Yeah it's a bit unfair as it is part of the Wholesale Market so the building is council owned.  It basically had an all night licence before they were a thing to serve the market staff.  If you knocked on the door a little slat would open and they'd eyeball you first before letting you in.  The landlord according to legend had a shotgun under the counter which I can completely believe.  Full of fruities, angry lads and drug dealers.

[Psybro]

A lot of flat roof boozers are supermarkets now and look more in place as such than they did as pubs.

[badaids]

You left out The Woolpack, Hayes: #MondayMotivation #Strippers - 1pm: Isobella, Tiffany Janinie and Nicky. 4pm: Bia. 5pm: Claudia. 7pm: Alice, Tiffany, Lina and Tina.

And The Bell in Ruislip Gardens. Covered in England Flags and proudly advertising the £5 Brexit Breakfast on a chalk board outside.

The Hillingdon Arms was demolished in 2018.  Driven past it many times making the sign of the cross.

In Walton on Thames where I grew up there was a lovely little pub next to the Thames that got taken over and turned over into a Slug & Lettuce chain pub.  Within weeks it was being described 'The Beirut of Walton' with knives, drugs and in one memorable of incident I would loved to have scene a motorbike gang drove their bikes in and vroomed all around the place like in a film.

[kalowski]

You left out The Woolpack, Hayes: #MondayMotivation #Strippers - 1pm: Isobella, Tiffany Janinie and Nicky. 4pm: Bia. 5pm: Claudia. 7pm: Alice, Tiffany, Lina and Tina.

God, the afternoon stripper.
Do they still exist?

[canadagoose]

The Grapes, Edinburgh:

I thought that might get a mention. I'm going to add the Tam O'Shanter, near me in Leith, for smelling of piss, BO and fags whenever I pass it. It just seems extremely grim.



Check out this retro price list, though. It's notably cheaper than a lot of newer Leith establishments, at least.

[badaids]

God, the afternoon stripper.
Di they still exist?

The last time I was passing through Feltham and High Wycombe in 2019 they still had all day stripper pubs. Grim.

[The Mollusk]

An oldie but a goody. Dunno where it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P5YCZF1d_Q

This is the exact pub scene from "Calvaire" and I won't be convinced otherwise.

[badaids]

Something I've always wondered.

The Port Sunshine in Irvine Welsh's novels... clearly based on a rough as bollocks real pub or pub in Leith.  Does anyone know which one(s) or been to them.  I'd love to go there one day but imagine it may have gone now.

[Rizla]

Not the roughest, but the Four in Hand, a Hibs pub on Easter Rd. Here it is after it was "firebombed" a few years back -

The owner at that time was Paul "Kano" Kane, ex-midfielder from the John Blackley era of the 80s. After the arson attack, he reasoned that a fresh look was needed, so the boozer was duly renamed as the IV Bar, an unfortunate rebranding since a) "The HIVS" is a cruel nickname sometimes given to his former club by opposing fans, and b) 5-1 was the scoreline of a best-forgotten 2012 cup final tie against their city rivals Hearts.

The bar was soon taken over by former hibs goal-machine Derek "barred from every pub in Edinburgh" Riordan, who cleverly rebadged it R10rdan's and set about rehabilitating the place's good name.

I've always found it to be pleasant enough.