Overview

A great pleasure to be able to award a venue five stars in every category. Definitely recommended for wheelchair users.

Transport & Parking

Balham tube station is not step-free at all, but Balham railway station has manual boarding ramps, friendly staff and a lift, and is just a few hundred yards from The Bedford. Many bus routes serve Balham, including the 249, 155 and 355.

Access

The entrance at the southern corner of the pub has a low step and staff will bring a sturdy aluminium ramp if you need it. The bars are spacious and there is sufficient room to navigate around tables. Some tables are very high. The lower tables are a good height for a wheelchair user.

Toilets

A very rare pleasure to be able to award five stars to an accessible toilet. It's well designed and laid out, with a good long red emergency cord hanging almost to the floor. One small flaw: the red/white vacant/engaged indicator on the outside of the door is back to front and shows red when the toilet is vacant and white when it's engaged. This would be worth correcting, to save discomfort and embarrassment for customers trying to use the toilet.

Staff

All the staff I encountered were charming, friendly, alert and helpful - helpful without being intrusive, which is ideal. Top marks.

Anything else you wish to tell us?

The food is rather expensive but really excellent. Having discovered this excellent pub I will certainly be visiting it again frequently in future.

Photos