When it comes to short discussions, “Which is London’s most festive pub?’ is right up there. You’ve basically got two choices. There’s West London’s Churchill Arms, which has been festooned with lights, trees and sparkly gubbins every Christmas since the 1990s; and the Dog and Bell, which also had many lights, a huge tree and a sleigh-based resin Father Christmas, whose stately progression down Deptford High Street in mid-November marks the start of festivities in this part of town.
The statistics around the Churchill Arms, which straddles the much-debated Kensington/Notting Hill border, are staggering. This Fuller’s pub features 20,000 LED lights and 60 full-sized Christmas trees on its exterior during the festive period. Installation, perhaps not surprisingly, takes a couple of weeks, in the run-up to said lights being switched on in mid-November (the 13th, in 2025, at 6pm).
The Churchill Arms festooned in lights
Impressive, I think we can agree, but what is most warming at this time of year is the fact that pubs of all kinds, sparkly or otherwise, are busy. The key festive tradition, in truth, is that people go to them in a way they don’t for the other eleven months. This is particularly true on Christmas Eve, when thousands of overexcited punters try to fit a year’s worth of drinking into one session.
All very well, but the true heads know the real Christmas pub experience can only be enjoyed on the big day itself, when a significant minority of pubs open for a few hours around lunch. This is pub culture in the raw, when most of us are knee-high in wrapping paper, elbow-deep in a turkey or simply sleeping off the previous night’s overindulgence (a year’s worth of drinking will do that to you).
New Cross’s Shirker’s Rest, a micropub about half a mile from the Dog and Bell, typically opens from 12 until 3pm on Christmas Day, although that can stretch later into the afternoon depending on who turns up. There’s a different crowd than the normal punters; fewer students and lecturers (Goldsmiths University is next door), more locals. People are here for a variety of reasons: they live on their own, they don’t like Christmas, they just need a break from the festive mania, or they just love pubs and don’t want to miss the most festive pub day of the year.
The Shirker’s Rest in New Cross
The Shirker’s Rest in New Cross
They’re also, apparently, people who like cooking. According to one of the pub’s co-owners, Andrew Grumbridge, people bring in all sorts of festive food on Christmas Day to share around: trays of roast potatoes, mince pies, sausage rolls, the lot. Unsurprisingly, all this adds up to a unique atmosphere. “On Christmas Day, everyone’s a bit more open, a bit more jolly,” says Andrew. “Conversations start more easily. You often see friendships formed over the course of the afternoon.”
that there’s not a huge financial incentive for pubs like the Shirker’s to open on Christmas Day. They’re not making much money. What they are doing is living up to the much-repeated claim that pubs are more than just commercial operations, that they fulfil a key community function – they’re places of human connection as much as alcohol consumption.
Inspiring stuff, I think you’ll agree, although a little less twinkly than the Dog and Bell, which is half a mile away as the crow flies. Could the Shirker’s – whose decoration can best be described as functional – be doing a bit more in that regard? No one’s expecting 20,000 lights, but could they stretch to a mere 20? Andrew, often found behind the bar on the 25th, chuckles at the notion. “I wore a Santa hat last year,” he says. “What more do you need?” What more indeed?
