Overview

This is a reasonably good place for wheelchair users to eat and drink. The toilet problems mentioned below make it less than ideal for wheelchair users and the cobbles as your approach the entrance are really unpleasant. Staff were brusque and cold on my last visit.

Transport & Parking

Richmond Station is a stone's throw away and is step-free to train (District Line, but take care choose the optimal place on the platform where the gap between platform and train is narrowest), and step-free to platform (London Overground and National Rail - talk to staff before travelling as they will need to deploy a manual boarding ramp). Lots of bus routes run past the pub. I wouldn't dream of trying to park nearby. (If I did dream about it, it would be a bad dream.)

Access

The approach to the pub's step-free entrance has nasty bumpy cobbles (one star lost for this). Apart from that, access into the pub is easy and there's plenty of room to move around. Most tables are wheelchair-friendly, beware of those with a cross-bar at floor level, these are wheelchair-UNfriendly but they are a minority among the many tables there. The bar counter is very high so you might want to bring a periscope if you're a wheelchair user.

Toilets

There is a generally well-laid-out accessible toilet at the back of the back bar, secured by a RADAR key lock. Mysteriously, the staff keep their RADAR key in the basement, not in the bar (why???!), so you may encounter a delay if you don't have your own RADAR key. There are some bad features of this toilet. - I found the red emergency cord tied up out of reach, this is very thoughtless, dangerous and silly. This cord must reach all the way to the floor so that it can be reached by anyone who falls over in the often perilous transfer from wheelchair to toilet and back. - The RADAR lock was broken. It cannot be raised to the 'locked' position. This means that I was unable to lock myself into the toilet, so that anyone else with a RADAR key would have been able to gain entry while I was in the middle of doing my business, with my trousers down. This is TOTALLY NOT-OK! The RADAR lock needs to be replaced with one that works correctly. - The hand-dryer was much too high on the wall for a wheelchair user to reach. It's incomprehensible that anyone could have decided to install it at that height in a toilet specifically designed and intended for wheelchair users. See my pictures below. I spoke to a deputy manager in January 2019 about these problems, she listened sympathetically and was sweetness itself, but by September 2019 these problems have not been fixed, which is very disappointing.

Staff

On my most recent visit staff were cold and brusque. The fact that the staff have not dealt with the toilet problems (see above) which I mentioned to them eight months ago is a further reason for my very low staff star-rating.

Anything else you wish to tell us?

The pub has a pet chameleon. Definitely worth a visit, though she's in a cage in the office just off the main bar, and the office is reached via a step, so if you're not mobile you may have to admire her from a distance. She's called Teresa and when I was last there she was green with speckles. The food is good. I will probably visit this place again, though the toilet problems mentioned above are a big deterrent and do not signal a warm welcome to wheelchair users. I'm very disappointed that after 8 months the staff have still not sorted out the toilet problems. This level of apathy and inaction is NOT good.

Photos