After I booked the flights for our family vacation to London last winter, for July of 2024, I started looking for hotel rooms. Being four of us, all on the larger side either in length or width, we pretty much must have two rooms, since cramming into one room with two full-sized beds is simply not an option. Boy, did I get some massive sticker shock! I knew that London would be expensive, but staying in a normal, very basic Marriott was looking to cost me upwards of $15k for 9 nights. That was absolutely not going to happen. I started looking for boutique hotels, which are often more reasonably priced, when I came across a few groups of pubs who had renovated rooms above the bars that were bookable, and about 1/3 of the price of a hotel! What an English thing to do, stay in a pub – just like Harry Potter staying at the Leaky Cauldron! After agonizing over many details, I booked two rooms at the Clerk & Well Pub, in the Clerkenwell neighborhood of London.

The Location

London, I found, is one of those cities where I prefer to not be in the absolute center of the action. Pushing our way around Big Ben and Parliament on our last day, and walking through the crowds around Covent Garden and Picadilly on other days, made me extra satisfied with our very chill Clerkenwell neighborhood. This is a place where people live and work, and the pubs are definitely more busy during the week than on the weekends. We were about a 15 minute walk directly east of the British Museum, and about 15-20 minutes walk north and west of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Thames. For everywhere else, we either hopped on a double-decker bus about a 1 minute walk from the room, or walked about 5 minutes to the very well connected Farringdon Tube Station. The Elizabeth Line from the airport stopped here, making it very easy to get in and out of central London for us.

Clerkenwell is also an up and coming neighborhood for really great food. There is a massive Middle Eastern and African food market on Leather Lane right across the street from the pub. There are also several Michelin-starred and recommended eateries within a 5 minute walk. In fact, for most of our dinners out, we stayed right in the neighborhood. Check out my review of St. John for one of my favorite meals during our entire trip!

For me, not willing to deal with summertime crowds, being a reasonable walk from a few major sights, and a very easy walk to the bus or the tube made the location of the Clerk & Well absolutely perfect for our family vacation. Massive points here for location!

The Amenities

Staying at a pub, you definitely give up a lot of amenities, however seeing as though this was mainly just a place to lay our heads at night, most things were not missed. There is no pool nor gym here, nor any laundry service. There is no concierge, not even a front desk. There isn’t really an easy way to get things that you might need, although there was a small grocery shop a few blocks away that had any necessity you may have forgotten at home.

That said, the rooms were cleaned and towels replaced daily, and we were able to store our bags in a closet behind the bar until our room was ready. There were Nespresso machines for coffee, as well as bottles of water in the mini fridge that were replenished every day. Breakfast is included with the rooms, however my one complaint is that it only started at 8am, which is much too late if you are getting an early head start on touring around. We ended up eating breakfast only two or three days out of nine because of the time. WiFi in the rooms and the pub was good, and uninterrupted. While your stay is pretty bare-bones, we really didn’t miss having the extras like a pool or a concierge. I did miss having laundry service, which is something I had gotten more used to at upscale stays for longer trips, but we simply packed more stuff for our nine-night vacation.

The Room

We booked two rooms, and they were cozy and well appointed. They were obviously gutted and rehabbed recently, and the bathrooms were actually quite nice, even if a little small. The shower pressure was excellent, and the toilets and sinks worked well. All of the photos you see here is of my room, a comfort double, which was on the first floor.

All of the rooms are up at least on very steep flight of stairs, and many are up on the second and third levels as well. The folks at the pub are more than happy to help carry up your baggage, but if stairs are not your thing, then don’t stay here. There is not a ton of in-room storage here either. There is one large open cubby area with a shelf or two as well as a few rods fixed inside for hangers. We utilized every drawer and shelf we could in the room, including the desk drawer and nightstand drawers, as well as the fireplace mantle to store our voluminous clothes that were necessary for 9 days of vacation.

Note that the website advertises the rooms to have king sized beds, however they are most definitely not king sized. They are queens, and while we were disappointed at first, we were so tired most evenings that sharing a smaller bed ended up being no big deal. The beds themselves were extremely comfortable with a soft mattress and really nice high-thread-count sheets.

The website also advertises air conditioning in all rooms. The a/c in our room worked, although leaked quite a lot, which was a bit irritating with the dripping noise and wet carpet. The a/c in my husband’s room did not work at all, although he said that he didn’t mind as they had a powerful fan, and it was not too hot when we visited London. Finally, the rooms are not very dark at night. While our room did sport blackout roman shades, the shades themselves were several inches in front of the windows, allowing all the light from the city outside into our room. Again, we were so tired that this didn’t matter much, but typically I would prefer the room to be much, much darker.

Overall, considering some of the issues I had with the room, I would say that they were still above average. Apart from some minor irritations, the most important things to have for us on this trip were a comfortable bed and a good shower, and those were really the best parts of the room. For the price, at around $325 a night USD, I can’t, and shouldn’t, complain too much about the little things.

The Pub

We had breakfast here several times, and we also had dinner here on our first night. Breakfast was ample, and they did offer a Full English, which was really a lot of food. As mentioned, I wished that breakfast started a bit earlier, but when we did have it, the food was excellent and filling.

We enjoyed dinner here on our first night, and it was above-average. Cocktails, especially the gin based ones, were extremely delicious. I had the fish and chips, and they did give you a ton. It was well cooked and flaky, and not too greasy, and came with chunky potatoes.

The pub itself is very cute and clean, although I feel like the amazing refurbishments they made only a few years ago are already showing their age. That said, it was a comfortable home base, and an easy place to grab a pint after a long day of touring around, or during a Euro Cup Final Match!

The Recommendation

Look, if you can afford it, definitely stay in a proper hotel in London. That said, if you are looking for nice accommodation in a very good neighborhood with local charm and great restaurants, then I wouldn’t hesitate to book the Clerk & Well rooms. The Clerk & Well Pub and Rooms score very high for location and comfort, as well as price. If you can overlook a few minor snafus like a leaky air conditioner, then I would say this place is near ideal for a short stint in Central London.