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The Tim Bobbin, Clapham Common  fancyapint.com rated pub, rated3 pints - click for an explanation of our ratings

location:

Clapham Common

address:

1-3 Lillieshall Road, SW4 0LN

phone:

0871 258 5098*
* calls cost 10p/minute, click here for more about 0871 numbers.

nearest stations:

Wandsworth Road railway station
(520m)

Clapham Common London Underground station
(580m) - zone 2

Clapham High Street railway station
(710m)

Clapham North London Underground station
(910m) - zone 2

Queenstown Road (Battersea) railway station
(990m)

how to find it:

From Clapham Common tube walk down The Pavement, Old Town and into North Street. You will probably see a board out for the pub, but if not, Lillieshall Road is a turning on the left and the pub is just round the corner.

click here for a larger map

picture of Tim Bobbin
Renovated a few years back now, this pub has settled down to a life somewhere between aspirational gastropub and local boozer. Given its location in a residential side street in middle class Clapham, this is probably the only way it could survive, but it seems to work quite well. The beers not bad at all, with guest ales and, though the food's pretty dear, it's of a good quality and the service good too. The range of spirits is excellent and the décor is pleasant, if a bit of a mixture. The clientele consists of locals by daytime, with the more stereotypical Cla'am dweller of an evening and at weekends. And on one visit the locals would have made Roger Melly blush, but they're amiable enough and the atmosphere is generally quieter than the rowdier bars in the area. If you're keen, you might even get a game of darts in. Oh, if you are wondering who Tim Bobbin was, he was an 18th century Lancastrian poet and illustrator. A satirist of both working and upper class life, copies of his drawings adorn the walls here.

reviewed:
28/09/2008
reviewed by quixote

second opinion:

posted by redrockfellas - Monday 12th January, 2009, 11:15pm
Dreadful food, dreadful attitude and a dreadful experience. Here's why... On Sunday afternoon I went to this pub in a party of 5, one of which was a local bar manager who recommends this place to others. We ordered 5 roast beefs from the menu (which said roast potatoes and vegetables) and what came on my plate were 2 small pieces of beef, one french bean, a quarter of a carrot, one minute piece of broccoli and 3 tiny new potatoes - that had been fried, all covered in gravy with one yorkshire pudding. The other plates were very similar. We asked for more veg and potatoes and were told no problem, so we started. The beef was very stringy and quite frankly not nice - it looked like pork. The waitress then came back and told us that we could not have any more! We were annoyed because the total amount of vegetables on all 5 plates wouldn't have been adequate for just one person let alone 5. One look around the pub confirmed that we were not the only ones with a problem, everyone with a plate in front of them looked disappointed. So we decided to complain. We asked the manageress what was going on, why our meal portions were terrible and what was she going to do about it. The answer was laughable. We were told with a smile that "people had complained about too much food", "that you know how it is, sometimes you get loads and sometimes you get hardly anything", and that there was no way she would take any money off our bill - completely insulting and of course complete rubbish. We decided to leave, paid up and left. When we paid, we saw that the menu said the roast was 11.95 and yet we were charged 12.95! "Why?" we asked - the answer was "because we haven't changed the tills yet". You couldn't make it up. I wonder how long they have been trying that one on for... I walked into the Tim Bobbin hungry and I left starving. We decided to go up the road and walked in to the Rose and Crown where to my surprise (well, not really) we found others who had all been 'eating' at the Tim Bobbin an hour or so beforehand and were now having to eat again to fill themselves up! There were loads of us!! All of whom had been ripped off by the Tim Bobbin. Some people had ordered very expensive wine there and this was the way they were treated - they were eating burgers at the Rose. And, finally, to add complete insult to injury, 2 of our party have been ill today, Monday, and have been off work - why?? Could it be the beef? Almost certainly. Do yourself a favour and never ever walk into this pub - you have been warned. And will we ever recommend this place to anyone again in Clapham? No chance.
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