Tube Pub Crawl takes Five Years

and test your Tube Pub skills

On this blog you've read about many Tube challenges where people travel round all 275 London Underground stations as quickly as possible. It may be just stations in zone 1 or stations that follow the alphabet, but now three guys (a professional poker player, a risk analyst & a web designer) have completed their quest to have a drink in the nearest pub to every tube station but it's taken them five years to complete!

They finished their pub crawl at North Ealing just before midnight on last Thursday, slightly bleary eyed as they completed 16 stations in that day alone.

Professional poker player Ian Taylor said: "About five years ago we did the Victoria Line for a laugh, but we enjoyed it so much we decided to try and carry it on.

"We have had some really big days where we have done 18 stations, but the minimum we do is four and all of us have to be there for it to count."

He continued "The furthest we had to walk to a pub was at Cannons Park, it took us 30 minutes and by that time we were almost at Edgware Road."

Ian was joined by Matt Slade and Ringo Greenwich.

Ian said: "I don't know what we're going to do now, it's going to leave a big hole in our lives."

Personally I think they should have made it more of a challenge and done it a bit faster. The circle line pub crawls (a couple are outlined here and here) involve visiting a pub nearest to each of the 27 stations on the line in one day. Technically if you can do 27 stations in one day - it should only take just over 10 days of serious drinking to do all 275. Perhaps something that takes five years, shouldn't really be classified as a "pub crawl" more like a "pub meander".

I'm probably being a bit churlish so in honour of the lads, here's a quick pub quiz based on the tube and drinking houses:

1. Name a Tube station that used to have a pub on its platform?

2. Who wrote a book where the main character regularly had a drink in Tube station pub before going home?

3. Give the name of ONE Tube station that shares its name with a pub? (there are at least five - don't show off and give all five)

4. Which pub is currently closest to a Tube station? (measured by pub entrance to station entrance)

5. One (or maybe even more than one) of the following pubs are NOT in an area covered by the Tube map - The Ferret & Trouserleg, The Queen's Head & Artichoke, The Frog & Nightgown, The Five Bells & Blade Bone or The World Turned Upside Down - which is it (or are they)?

There's a "Mind the Gap" beer spillage mat for the person who gets most answers correct and in the event of a tie - the winner will be randomly selected. Give your answers in the comments below.


You have until Sunday 5th August 11.59pm (UK Time) to make your guesses. Please leave an email address or website/blog so I can contact the winner for their address.