Five minutes after the opening of the world’s first pub, the world’s first prohibitionist tried to close it. Pubs have to fight hard to survive and that struggle at the moment is as hard as its ever been. Today pubs are closing at an alarming rate.

My book is a celebration of the spirit of pubishness everywhere. It is also a statement of what we stand to lose if today’s neo-Puritans get their way. If we lose our pubs it will be because we have forgotten how to enjoy them and how to enjoy ourselves.

10 BEST PUBS IN LONDON (with Google Street Map views)

1. White Horse – Parsons Green

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BACKGROUND

• Britain's 10 best pubs with gardens

• Bottoms up: world's best pub crawls

• Show us your favourite pub on Google Street View

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• The best pubs in England and Wales

The primus inter pares of London pubs. A veritable Aladdin’s Cave for the bibliophile, it has a beer list that other boozers can only look at enviously. The brewing industry’s unofficial London home continues to set the standard and a young dynamic management team are determined to build upon a hard won reputation eared over the past 27 years.

2. Coach & Horses – Soho

The Coach & Horses is Soho, or what’s left of it anyway. Like most London districts Soho is a village and this is the village local. Rude landlords and low life scribes may come and go and maybe the Coach is in need of a new set to help it enter the next chapter in its salubrious rather than illustrious existence. There’s no hurry.

3. Cross Keys – Endell St

The modern taste for pubs owned by large chains is spacious minimalism. The Cross Keys is testimony to the fact that the preference of the Londoner is still for Victorian clutter. A permanent amber hue suffuses this foliage covered pub, reflected from the copper and brass artefacts that adorn every available inch of wall and ceiling. Definitely a pub for those happy to completely lose track of the passage of time.

4. Red Lion – Crown Passage

Dukes and dustmen rub shoulders in the Red Lion. Gentlemen from the clubs of St James drop in for a fortifying pint before sampling the Burgundies and Ports that will be served them by their neighbour at the bar, also stopping in for a quickie before donning the various liveries of clubland.

5. Princess Louise – Holborn

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