Review

When you're playing on a pub quiz machine and the question is 'Who was the commander of HMS Victory during the Battle of Trafalgar?' (A: Hardy, B: Nelson or C: Hornblower), don't demonstrate ignorance by getting the question totally wrong. Don't fall for the obvious mistake that it was Nelson. Lord Nelson was the admiral of the fleet and thus entitled to free-passage on the flagship: HMS Victory, captained by Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy.

The Admiral Hardy, in the centre of Greenwich, faces onto College Approach, backs onto Greenwich Market and is a short stroll from the Cutty Sark. As to be expected from its location, this is a busy pub, popular with tourists, diners and hen-pecked partners escaping for a beer whilst their other half shops in the market. The pub used to be an old-style, traditional boozer with lots of maritime tat and locals propping up the bar, but has recently been 'reinvented' to give it a more modern feel. Fortunately, not too much of the pub's charm has been lost in the gentrification.

This is a two-room pub - a traditional bar at the front and a lounge at the back. The front bar, which has its own doorway into the market, has a stone floor, pale wooden panelled walls, a large mirror on the wall and lots of heavily waxed candles in bottles. The bar itself is small with brass rails around it. On the wall, anonymously situated between a portrait of Nelson and a portrait of Hardy, is a large black and white photograph that shows twenty or thirty naked people lying haphazardly on the floor. It's probably meant to be 'art' but it resembles a photograph taken in a Nazi death camp during its liberation. It's not art - it's sick!

The back room obviously used to be a shop inside the market, but has now been appended to the pub. The overriding sensation is the colour green - a dark green, like cooked spinach, in which everything is painted. Several battered leather sofas and armchairs surround wooden chests acting as tables. It's difficult to tell if the paintwork on the chests is genuine or not, unlike the chest on the sexy glass collector which is defiantly genuine. Tall lamps standing on the floor among the seating are made from oars, and tall paintings on the wall depict dock scenes in a cubist manner. The main feature of the room is a large fish tank that's devoid of fish and is more like a Harry Houdini escape chamber. A large, locked cage embedded in the wall contains many bottles of wine.

Admiral Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy served with Nelson at the naval actions of the Nile, Naples, Sicily, Copenhagen, Toulon and the pursuit of the enemy's fleets to the West Indies and back. He was officially Captain of the Fleet at the battle off Cape Trafalgar, in which the British destroyed the French and their allied Spanish fleets. As one of the most famous Captain's in the history of the Royal Navy, Vice-Admiral Hardy was created a baronet for his services at Trafalgar; he became the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty and spent the last years of his life as Governor of Greenwich Hospital, where he was buried following his death in 1839.

Review by mr_psm