One of the best pubs in London, and top Pub of the Year 2018 as judged by the members of CAMRA's West London branch from hundreds of pubs across the boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, and the City of Westminster, is the West End's very own Harp.

The branch presented the certificate to the pub and its staff on 18th April. While there we sampled some of their beers which that evening included some of the award winning London beers from the London Drinker Beer Festival. The Harp is widely known for its great selection of well-kept beers and ciders including local London beers, and is a participant in the CAMRA LocAle scheme.

CAMRA West London chairman Les Maggs welcomed the news “As long as the tradition of quality established by the sadly late former owner Binnie Walsh lives on, this is not the first time and will certainly not be the last time that CAMRA's National Pub of the Year 2010 will be in the running for awards!”.

The branch will present the runner-up certificates to the Churchill Arms (3rd place) on 2nd May and the Cask Pub and Kitchen (2nd place) on 15 May.

There's been recently a significant change to the area covered by West London Branch. Since 1st September, the branch boundaries for the first time have been defined by the London boroughs rather than by postcode sectors. We are now the branch covering the boroughs of Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea and the City of Westminster.

The main reason for this is that so much of our campaigning work today is in pub preservation to defend pubs from closure. It makes it much easier if we only have three local authorities we need to consult with, and we will only need to monitor planning applications affecting pubs in those three boroughs. A further benefit is that explaining the area our branch covers is much simpler and no longer involves a massive list of postcodes!

To mark the changes to the branch boundaries we recently enjoyed a joint social with North London Branch in the St John's Wood/Lisson Grove/northern Marylebone area visiting some of the pubs which would transfer from North London branch area to West London. We had a good turnout on the social from both branches.

There is a map giving full details of the pubs which will change branch areas. A simplified description of the main changes affecting our branch is as follows:

• The east of Fitzrovia (in Camden borough) transfers from West London to North London
• The north of WC2 including most of Holborn and the north of Covent Garden (in Camden borough) transfers from West London to North London
• St John's Wood and Lisson Grove (in the City of Westminster) transfers from North London to West London
• Most of Chiswick (in Hounslow borough) transfers from West London to Richmond & Hounslow Branch. The area north of Chiswick Park station (in Ealing borough) however transfers to West Middlesex Branch.

We'll be updating the pub guide section of this site in the near future with the new pubs in our branch area - in the meantime please search WhatPub.com. There is also a map showing the branch pubs.

Many other London branches are also changing their boundaries - for further information please check out this page on the London CAMRA site.