Skehans in London 'Cool List'

Slightly surprized, to say the least, to see my local featured in the Evening Standard magazine 'Cool List' of  'what's hot in the capital now' (11 April 2018). Skehans - once known as McConnells and before that the Duke of Albany - is on the corner of Kitto Road and Gellatly Road, SE14.


According to journalist Frankie McCoy, if you want a BNO (Big Night Out) you start by 'hitting Nunhead (go down to Peckham, then keep going down) for pints at Skehans, the old Irish pub now rammed with Central Saint Martins students before heading to disused pub The Rising Sun, home of a bunch of Goldsmiths students who make music, play music and throw some pretty wild parties'.
 
Don't worry folks, the pub hasn't changed - it's the same old Irish pub with Thai restaurant in the garden and sport on TV as before, but it has got a bit busier recently, which is generally a good thing because there was a time a few years ago when there would be just one or two people in the bar and I worried about whether it could survive.


But I think anybody following the Standard's tip and travelling across town might be a little  underwhelmed  unless they've never seen a pub before and I doubt they would pick up an invitation to a private house party down the road. Also not everybody under 25 in the pub went to Saint Martins... some went to Goldsmiths or Camberwell!


Also while near to Nunhead station, and close to the Nunhead/New Cross border at the edge of Telegraph Hill, the pub is in SE14 and the blue binned borough of Lewisham and I don't think most people would say it was in Nunhead.


Still  the pub does have a historic connection to Nunhead, and its Roman Catholic church of St Thomas the Apostle. The church was damaged by a bomb during the Second World War and 'For a time Masses were held in a room above the bar in the public house in Kitto Road' (see church history)