Traders Inn

Pints.

Top o' the year to you. Pub sessions begins 2025 back in Edgware Road which we visited first in 2016. Unfortunately, the main reason we came back - The Lord High Admiral - has closed down. Memories of Joe kicking a dead mouse under the table as we sat down will be cherished and we hope someone has taken their Bronze 2016 award home with them. In addition, The Richmond Arms had also closed down, replaced by a fancier hotel, pub, curry house. Memories of Joe storming out and threatening to leave sessions because he lost at darts, again will be cherised.

Alas no point mopping around, we continued to the Traders Inn on Church Street Market. The marker traders were packing up, sweeping aside the remnants of the day’s business, which had left the road looking like the aftermath of a festival. This area of London whilst so central has managed to hide from the developers greedy hands and its quite a sight to behold.

Out front of the Traders Inn, a mobility scooter serves as a makeshift smoking lounge, occupied in shifts by a man whose drinking a pint inside. An old gent and his grandson play darts and we settle around a table near the door.

The locals reckon they’ve never seen this end of the bar so packed. Behind the bar, Emma’s marking a milestone—her first anniversary at the helm coming up this weekend which we noted from the welcoming sheet of paper stuck the window, inviting every passerby to the party.

Down the other end a lady was playing the fruit machine, which come to think of it I don't think I've ever seen before. A table is filled with a covered buffet, an event later perhaps as no one was tucking in. We had two pints as the atmosphere was cracking and we imagine some of the locals from the Lord High Admiral must have migrated here.

A proper boozer ❤️ (Last pic from our 2016 visit)