TOP 100 PUBS – HAND & MARIGOLD, BERMONDSEY

October 2026. Bermondsey. South-east London.

A real tourist walk up next,

past the Tower, and the bridge that was sold in error to Americans but proved too expensive to send via Amazon.

Don’t those buildings look quaint when you look back from the Thames ? You used to be able to see St Paul’s, you know.

New GBG tick No. 2 takes you just west of the Bermondsey beer mile,

just below lovely St Mary Magdalen and the fast creeping (or is that impossible) gentrification of Bermondsey Square.

It’s a joy just walking and discovering little pockets of London, like the one occupied by the Hand & Marigold.

Only re-opened 18 months ago, though it seems to have had what Wikipedia would call “Universal acclaim” from #PubMen for much longer than that.

And I’m sure I’m the last of the tickers to get here.

Nowhere does ornate Victorian corner pubs as well as London, and I’ve been to Harare and Tbilisi so I know what I’m talking about.

Absolutely gorgeous, almost a Bass shrine (so put it on !), and a touch of Stockport’s Crown about it with the comfy seating and good mix of custom. And really lovely staff.

Proper glasses for quality pints like the Verdant Fresh Hop ’26 (VERY GOOD)

and what my notes descibe as “classic rock”.

Which could mean Rick Wakeman. Or Def Leppard. But probably not Charli XCX.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

11 thoughts on “TOP 100 PUBS – HAND & MARIGOLD, BERMONDSEY”

  2. I’m really pleased you have discovered the Hand & Marigold. It’s been reviewed five times on Pubs Galore (six if you count one reviewer going back to record a second visit) – which is quite a lot for a reopening 18 months ago . Your photos certainly do it justice. Very good pub.

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  3. I think it was Mick (Citra/MobyDuck) who first alerted me to the H&M on PuG. I was in London back in early June for a meeting Crystal Palace way, and had time on my journey back through London for a “refreshment stop” and a quick bit of research made me realise the H&M was doable. I came out of Bermondsey Tube and turned left, with a 10-min walk ahead of me, but got distracted by the Mock Tudor and yellow fascia of The Gregorian and ended up having two excellent pints and chatting to the temporary landlord who was late of The Lamb in Bloomsbury (the pub has now closed since my visit). He then suggested The Old Justice was nearby and worth dropping into, so I did, and subsequently binned off visiting the H&M. I’m not quite in the #PubMen league these days, so it’s still on the hitlist. Twitter, Untappd and PuG will no doubt be duly notified once I make it there 😉

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      1. Never quite worked out why the denizens refer to it as PuG over plain old PG. There’s likely a ‘before-my-time’ reason methinks.

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  5. It took a while for radio stations here in the U.S.A. to amend their playlists to acknowledge that their definition of “Classic Rock” needed refreshment. Namely, the audience in its desired advertising demographic were listening to alternative rock stations in the 1990s; but their stations were not playing much of those records.
    Subsequently, one of the higher-listened-to formats now is “Classic Alternative“, with a scant minimum of records from the 1980s and earlier.
    When I had to program the in-match entertainment for our indoor soccer games in 1994-95, I had obtained an amount of C-90 promo cassettes from a publicist which were the pure songs: I.E.: with no overdubbed banter. A number of the songs heard this way wound up on game day tapes. The C-90 cassette I concocted for my ex-players is now uploaded to my World-Wide Web site. I won’t splice its URL here lest something or someone deigns it as spam. I believe my cosmic overlord got to my id while I compiled it. Perhaps due to doing this on 31 October. ☯️

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