The London Hotel, Southport

The London Hotel in Windsor Road is a large pub in a residential area about 10 or 15 minutes' walk from the town centre.  The reference to London probably refers to the area of Southport formerly called Little London, which was centred where the Blue Anchor pub is today where, apparently, merchants from London came to collect the fleeces of wool from North Meols.  The name Little London is also remembered in London Square and London Street.

The London's pub sign, complete
with superfluous apostrophe!

A CAMRA meeting took me there recently; it had been a while since I'd last visited.  The pub has three main rooms, one of which is often not opened but can be used if needed; the other two consist of a large multi-levelled room where the bar is, and a small front room on your left as you enter.  The pub serves beers from Oakwell Brewery: Barnsley Bitter (3.8%) and Dark Mild (3.4%) - prices £1.80 and £1.70 respectively.  I haven't tried the mild yet, but I find the bitter to be a perfectly standard bitter, and at least one member of the local CAMRA branch swears by it.

You could describe it as a community pub:  it has a bowling green, 4 darts teams, 2 quiz teams and a pool team.  They have an open mike night on Thursdays, and every Sunday evening they hold a quiz, karaoke and bingo.  Like most pubs, it has suffered a downturn in trade recently, and it has eccentric opening hours during the week (such as 10 p.m. closing on Wednesday), which probably doesn't help, but I do know this is the decision of the brewery, not the licensee. 

The London tends to be overlooked, but it's worth a visit.  Just check the opening hours!