Anchor Bankside.

Anchor Bankside

The pub tells you it was rebuilt in 1676 after the great fire of London, while the Grade II listing dates the building to the mid and late C18 and says outright that much of internal timberwork in rest of building is imitation (venue, CAMRA London Pubs Group).

Why go

The history that survives inspection is still worth the walk. Upstairs is what the listing calls a complete mid-late C18 pine-panelled room with wide, segmental-arched alcove (now called the Shakespeare Room), and the ground floor keeps an original early eighteenth-century kitchen fireplace and staircase2. The pub was the brewery tap for Barclay Perkins, whose brewery stood alongside it until the 1955 merger with Courage, and it is a stop on the London Pubs Group's tour of former Courage houses2. Greene King owns the freehold and runs it. The terrace sits directly on the Thames Path six minutes from the Globe and a short walk from Borough Market, which is why the pub's own facilities list ends with Coaches Accepted (venue).

Order this / avoid

• Order: Timothy Taylor Landlord at 4.3%, the one cask on the bar that is not a Greene King family brand. CAMRA's branch record has it spotted eight times recently, most recently two days before this entry was written, so it turns over1. If you want the house pour, Anchor Best is a 3.9% Hardys and Hansons bitter badged for the pub.
• Avoid: planning a meal around it. The menu runs fish and chips, sirloin steak and burgers, and no critic or guide has assessed the food here. Borough Market is five minutes east. Also avoid the terrace at early evening or on a sunny weekend.

What locals & experts say

• The statutory Grade II listing, quoted in full by CAMRA's London Pubs Group, is the most candid assessment on record: one complete period room upstairs, some original internal features in the older section, and Large recent extension to rear not of special interest.2
• CAMRA, South East London branch (surveyed October 2024, record updated July 2026): Close to the replica of Shakespeare's Globe, it was built in the early 1800s. This large pub has many rooms, nooks and crannies. Its outdoor drinking area is right on the Thames-side so perfect for a summer's day.1
• CAMRA London Pubs Group on the provenance: This pub was formerly a brewery tap for the Barclay Perkins Brewery that merged with Courage in 1955.2
• No critic has reviewed it. Time Out's page for the pub is a listing dated 2016 with no review text at all, checked by two separate fetch routes. That absence is the honest headline about the food.4

Good to know

• Timing: open all day, from 11am most days and 10am at weekends, closing somewhere between 10pm and 11.30pm depending on the day. Both published hours tables lose their day-to-time mapping when extracted, so check the Maps listing. Go early or late; this is a Thames Path pub between two of London's busiest attractions.
• Booking: tables can be booked through the Greene King site, and the pub takes functions and coach parties.
• Who it suits: dog friendly and family friendly, with a beer garden and step-free facilities per the venue.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 4, inspected 22 April 2026 by Southwark, FHRSID 1055918 (record).
• Dietary: nothing usable. The Greene King menu page is JavaScript-only and returned no dish or allergen text by any route, so no flags are set. CAMRA does record both Greene King IPA and Timothy Taylor Landlord as neither vegan nor gluten free, which is a beer property rather than a kitchen policy.
• Pepys: he watched the Great Fire in 1666 from "a little alehouse on bankside," and the association attaches to this site rather than to this building, which the listing dates a century later.

Craft signals (beer: a national-brand lineup that does not move)

Two signals, both drink-side, and they agree. CAMRA's July 2026 record logs Greene King IPA, a Hardys & Hansons bitter as the regular, Landlord and Tribute, and names Abbot and Tribute as the typical changing lines: a tied estate buying nationally, with no small-brewery guest anywhere in the record1. The pub's own channels sell the Thames terrace, the history and the coach access rather than any tap list or guest programme. The room is genuinely worth twenty minutes and the Landlord is a good pint; neither is a reason to cross London, and the Grade II listing sits under Experience where it belongs.

Verdict

could-visit — The site has held a tavern for centuries and the building is Grade II listed, and that is the reason to come. It is a Greene King house with two of its three casks in the Greene King family, a menu of fish and chips and burgers that no critic has ever assessed, and a facilities list that includes accepting coaches. The genuinely good things are specific and small: the first-floor Shakespeare Room, which the listing calls a complete mid-to-late eighteenth-century pine-panelled interior, a pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord, and a Thames terrace with the City opposite. Go for the history and the view, order the Landlord, and eat at Borough Market five minutes away.