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A ramble through the bracken-floored woodlands of Petts Wood and Hawkwood feels more like the South Downs than south east London — and in the same way, nearby One Inn the Wood is like stumbling across a country micropub, eons away from your average Fuller's joint or bougie under-the-arches brewery.
When the metropolis (and its beer prices) is getting you down, a jaunt to Pettts Wood and its best/only good pub blows away the cobwebs, without the need to abscond from Greater London altogether.
Dive into the hop-festooned warmth of One Inn The Wood to discover a pack of tired-out dogs strewn on the floor and a board chalked up with gravity-poured bitters, porters and golden ales. More modern craft beers (like Vibrant Forest's wonderfully hazy Pupa) sit alongside cask standards, suggesting the owners are plugged into the Untappd revolution.
Pints start from around £3.60 — almost unheard of outside of a Wetherspoon in London — and the other bit of magic is that the bar person disappears out the back to a little room, returning with your frothing pint. Ah, we do love ourselves a micropub.
The beer's not the only exceptional value item on sale: whacking slabs of Kentish cheeses come with crackers and piquant pickled onions at just £7 a pop — it's a cheeseboard that gives Gordon's a run for its money.
A welcoming band of locals seals the deal: one starts talking to us about the next nearest good pub (Bromley town's Star & Garter), and the 16.5% beer it recently served. We eventually head there, although not after another round of ale and slab of Kentish blue.
Online. On Facebook. On Twitter as @oneinnthewood
Last updated January 2020.
