The Liberty Bounds (JD Wetherspoon), Tower Hill, EC3

I wonder if there is a more 'touristy' Wetherspoons pub in the UK than the Liberty Bounds - if there is, I haven't been there. Sat just over the road from the Tower of London, close to Tower Hill tube station and affording good views down towards the Thames, this is an inevitable magnet for foreign holidaymakers, families on day trips and folk who have landed in the city from nearby Fenchurch Street station. Thankfully the pub is big enough to be able to deal with the inevitable large volume of customers it attracts, spread across two roughly equal sized floors, each with their own fully stocked bar. The floors mirror one another, with carpeted seating areas towards the front and on either side and serveries along the rear wall. The ground floor has a slightly elaborate layout with various bits of wall, pillars and partitioning screens breaking the space up and creating fairly distinctive seating areas - a feeling enhanced further by the raised front seating area. A few large tapestry works can be viewed here and I also noted some large sculptures including a headless queen, all of which has presumably been added to create some sort of visual link to the Tower. Elsewhere, there is the usual mix of 'Spoons seating including some booths and a sea of standard tables and chairs. Similar seating arrangements can be found upstairs and the booths here all had nice recessed images, such as one which I noticed had a copy of the Mariner's Mirror on show. Fake bookcases can also be found here and there are some reclaimed wooden panels and stained glass partitioning screens that combine to good effect. Over to the left there were a couple of very small, curved snugs which seat two people and were both filled with snogging couple on my recent visit. We got chatting to a Canadian couple who had thankfully refrained from such public displays of affection and they told us that they liked the pub but were put of by the countless warning signs alerting customers to the threat of bag thieves, including a six foot tall board to the side of the bar. On my late November visit there were five regular 'Spoons ales on handpull plus another five guest ales, with the final two pumps downstairs left unclipped. I tried a pint of Oakham JHB which was perfectly serviceable once the staff finally decided they should stop chatting and focus on serving me. A re-visit on New Years Eve saw a load of Christmas themed beers on and both the ones I tried were in pretty good shape. I found this place pretty manic and was rather pleased that I visited later in the day when it was at least free of children. The service was sloppy, the beer was so-so and the customers were mostly clueless, but I at least had a good view and managed to visit twice without having my bag pinched, so this one rates as fairly average with the potential to be pretty good or pretty dire depending on how you time your visit.

Nice enough Wetherspoons near Tower of London & Fenchurch Street station. Panelled walls and a stately theme in a historic way with various areas for seating. Standard beers with a couple of more individual.

This is a large Spoons in a building that looks like it could have been a bank. It was very busy at around 19:30 on a Saturday evening with a couple of slightly leery groups obstructing the bar. I counted twelve pumps with two ciders, GK IPA and Abbot, Sambrook's Pumphouse Pale, Milk Street Zig Zag Stout, Dorking Gold, Adnam's Broadside and Banks's Howling Wolf. There were also three beers making a pre-festival appearance, Thwaite's Half Nelson, Marston's Ballast Point Even Keel and Banks's Harpoon IPA. I went for the Harpoon IPA at £3.20. This is a GBG listed pub so I was disappointed to find this pint wasn't clear and had obviously not been given enough time to settle. Another disappointing Central London Spoons.

2 floor wetherspoons across the road from the Tower of London ticket booths.