When you imagine your fantasy pub this place probably isn’t too far from what springs to mind. It’s tucked down a side alley near a cluster of rowing clubs. Sadly we walked here along a dual carriage way in an inadvertent tribute to Alan Partridge but it could easily form part of a riverside walk.

Inside is warm, welcoming and bustling with the quintessential pub clichés of open fire, low ceiling, exposed beams and wobbly floor boards. Sadly the man who took my order had breath so bad it would have killed lesser men which almost put me off my beer though for the sake of a fair review I soldiered on and ordered a pint. For a pub that’s within spitting distance of the Fullers brewery the beer selection is total bollocks. but it does serve ‘Honey Dew’ which is highly recommended.

We enjoyed the first half of our bevvies out at the back of the pub which boasts a terrace which is almost certainly much better in summer but isn’t half bad even on a cold February Saturday. Whilst outside we witnessed a conversation between two ‘hooray Henry’ types the highlight of which was the sentence ‘Rowing is actually a very dangerous sport because swallowing Thames water can be fatal’. Sadly being a wanker isn’t fatal or at least wasn’t going to rid us of their toffish bullshit within half a pints time so we migrated inside to examine another of the pubs claims.

The Dove apparently has the smallest serving bar area in the world. This is slightly less exciting than it sounds as although it’s small its not small small, it’s just not big, nor is it average, it’d feel cramped with more than four people in it but that’s not proper small, proper small is too small to fit two people in it, like a toilet cubicle or something but that’d be annoying because only one of you could sit down and it might get a bit uncomfortable…..I digress. Bottom line is that we really liked this place, seems like it’d be great all year round, nice atmos, could do better on the beers and was a tad on the expensive side (£7.90 for two pints) but you can’t have it all. Sadly it’s lack of booze meant that it only walks away with 12/20 on our rating system but ignore that and go anyway.