A New Challenge For The Man Who Did London's Longest Pub Crawl

Harry Rosehill
By Harry Rosehill Last edited 88 months ago

Looks like this article is a bit old. Be aware that information may have changed since it was published.

A New Challenge For The Man Who Did London's Longest Pub Crawl
Sam will be going through a fair few of these. Photo: Matt Brown

Sam Cullen is a determined man.

After completing his mission to visit a pub near every tube station — AKA London's longest pub crawl — he's come up with a new challenge. Instead of taking a rest, having hit 270 pubs, Cullen is taking things up a notch.

This time he plans to travel to one pub per National Rail station. This is an even larger challenge than the last — there are 330 National Rail stations, adding an extra 60 pubs to the tally of the last boozy odyssey.

The tube challenge took Cullen three years (though he did move to Brighton in the middle of that) so he's in it for the long run. He expects Crossrail to have opened by the time he finishes, and he'll cover those stations for the celebratory end of the route.

Doing the National Rail crawl offers Sam the chance to explore parts of London he couldn't on his tube tour. Primarily the south of the river, where there are 150 National Rail stations compared to the Underground's paltry 29. It will also see Sam get further away from central London; there are only 19 rail stations in zone 1, so these pubs will be lesser known gems closer to the outskirts.

Sam's starting point, Waterloo station. Photo: Sean Hartwell Photography

Instead of doing each station chronologically as with the Underground, Sam is starting at a central London terminus and working his way out, firstly from Waterloo. From there he'll head out to south west London, then work his way anti-clockwise to east London, from which point he'll head east to west.

You can follow his progress on his blog, or on twitter @INNside track.

Last Updated 11 November 2016