The Mason's Arms, 109 East Street, Walworth

A forbidding Victorian giant standing at the top of East Street market, all crumbling plaster and fading paintwork. I was intrigued by the claim on the outside wall that it offered toning and sun beds, imagining the inside to be a mixture between a traditional pub and the mysteriously popular Tanning Shop chain. Sadly, the sign seemed to be a ploy to bamboozle the unwary, as inside there was no hint of sun beds, or their attendant local beauties frazzling themselves to a nice shade of bacon. In fact, the whole place was steeped in the sort of festering gloom that wouldn't have been out of place in a Samuel Beckett play. Peering through the murk, it seemed that many of the clientele, far from spending their evenings languishing on pub sun beds, had complexions that made Gollum look like a bronzed Adonis. Settling in after my initial disappointment, I soon realized that I was in Pub Hell. Some blokes played pool. Other stared at their pints. Rather than the convivial sound of conversation, a sepulchral silence reigned. The decor seemed to be based on a bar for officers in a penal colony. To describe the Mason's Arms as grim would be to understate an atmosphere bleaker than Pluto after it had its planetary status revoked, and any fun that might have been going on would require an electron telescope in order to be discovered. Apparently Charlie Chaplin was born just a few doors down the street; and it may be worth speculating what part this hideous pub may have played in his decision to emigrate.

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