London’s most equidistant pub

The Equidistance Pub Index

London’s most equidistant pub is The Greene Man at 383 Euston Road, on the corner of Great Portland Street. Starting from where each of the 33 boroughs’ residents actually live, and arriving by 7pm on an ordinary September Thursday by public transport, journeys to it span 47 minutes between the nearest borough and the furthest, and no borough needs more than 70. No pub in London does better on both measures.

The bigger finding is what nobody manages: not one of London’s 3,170 pubs is within an hour of all 33 boroughs.

3,170pubs tested 7,194TfL journeys timed 0pubs within an hour of every borough 47 minspread at the winner 12 minworst-case penalty at the geographic centre

Jump to: the ten fairest pubs · the two centres of London · your borough · famous pubs · method

The ten fairest pubs in London Ranked by keeping the worst-off borough’s journey as short as possible, then by the spread between the luckiest borough and the unluckiest. Every number is a TfL Journey Planner arrive-by-7pm journey from a borough’s population-weighted centre. ‘Worst case’ is the longest journey any borough faces. ‘Spread’ is the gap between the nearest borough’s journey and the furthest’s.

1 383 Euston Road, Fitzrovia, NW1 3AU A Greene King pub worst case 70 min/average 49 min 47 min spread across the 33 boroughs 2 240 Great Portland Street, W1W 5QU worst case 70 min/average 49 min 48 min spread across the 33 boroughs 3 58 Devonshire Street, W1W 5EA worst case 71 min/average 50 min 48 min spread across the 33 boroughs 4 7 Station Approach, Marylebone Road, NW1 5LD Wetherspoon, above Baker Street station worst case 71 min/average 49 min 54 min spread across the 33 boroughs 5 151 Cleveland Street, W1T 6QN independent free house, brews its own worst case 72 min/average 51 min 47 min spread across the 33 boroughs 6 28 Warren Street, W1T 5LT worst case 72 min/average 49 min 48 min spread across the 33 boroughs 7 26 Tolmers Square, Euston, NW1 2PE Young’s worst case 72 min/average 49 min 50 min spread across the 33 boroughs 8 137 Drummond Street, NW1 2HL worst case 72 min/average 49 min 50 min spread across the 33 boroughs 9 102 New Cavendish Street, W1W 6XW worst case 73 min/average 52 min 48 min spread across the 33 boroughs 10 30-32 Albany Street, Regent’s Park, NW1 4EA worst case 73 min/average 51 min 49 min spread across the 33 boroughs

Fairness makes no judgement about the beer. The winner is a Greene King pub, and number four is the Wetherspoon above Baker Street station. Number three, the Lucky Saint, is the flagship pub of an alcohol-free brewery; fairness makes no judgement about the strength, either. The George & Dragon on Cleveland Street, an independent free house and the West End’s only brewpub, sits at number five.

One pub is missing from the ten. On raw journey time the Huntley on Gower Street comes ninth, but it is University College London’s students’ union bar: open in term time only, and shut on the modelled September Thursday. It stays in the downloadable dataset, not on a list of places anyone can actually meet.

No pub within an hour of everyone Hillingdon is the binding constraint. From its population centre in North Hillingdon, even the best-connected pubs in central London take 70 minutes by the time the walk, the wait and the interchange are counted. Ease that limit up five minutes at a time and the pubs are slow to appear: Worst-case cap (minutes)Pubs everyone can reach in time 500 550 600 650 702 7534 8099 85198 90209 One footnote for purists: The Railway in West Hampstead has the single smallest spread of all, 46 minutes, but leaves the worst-off borough 76 minutes out, so it falls at any cap below 80.

The centre of London is in the wrong place In 2014 the geographic centre of Greater London, the point that balances the city’s shape, was calculated to sit beside Greet House on Frazier Street, SE1; this study’s boundaries reproduce that point to within 2.5 metres. The nearest pub, 86 metres away, is The Duke of Sussex on Baylis Road. If geography decided fairness, that would be London’s natural meeting place. The network disagrees: Free to reuse with credit to Equidistance. Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors. PubSpreadWorst caseAverage The Duke of Sussex, Baylis Road (geometric centre)578249.1 The Greene Man, Euston Road (network winner)477049.3 The averages are near identical.

The borough league Mean journey time from each borough’s population centre to the 218 shortlisted pubs, worst-served first, alongside the journey to the winner. Every borough’s residents can judge their own deal. BoroughTo The Greene ManMean to shortlist Hillingdon7079 Sutton6971 Havering6769 Kingston upon Thames6967 Richmond upon Thames6967 Hounslow6463 Bexley6462 Greenwich6261 Barking and Dagenham6060 Enfield5258 Bromley5557 Croydon5657 Redbridge5656 Wandsworth5655 Merton5252 Lewisham5951 Brent4151 Newham4850 Waltham Forest4249 Barnet4348 Southwark5048 Hackney4348 Ealing5046 Harrow4246 Tower Hamlets4346 Hammersmith and Fulham3940 Lambeth3839 Haringey3339 Islington2935 Camden3032 Kensington and Chelsea2732 Westminster2730 City of London2329