Hamilton Hall

The second station takes you into the old Great Eastern Hotel ballroom — now a Wetherspoons, which makes it a genuinely surreal place to have a midday pint. Hamilton Hall is named after Lord Claud Hamilton, chairman of the Great Eastern Railway from 1893 to 1923, and the interior was redesigned in 1901 to mimic the Palais Soubise in Paris. Ornate plaster ceilings, painted panels, a decorative mezzanine where the hotel orchestra once played. It became Wetherspoons' first-ever station pub in 1991. From here, walk round to Moorgate and jump on the Northern line northbound to Angel. Good moment to grab a meal deal — the pace picks up after this one.

Wetherspoon's first-ever station pub, opened in 1991 inside the former ballroom of the Great Eastern Hotel at Liverpool Street. Named after Lord Claud Hamilton, chairman of the Great Eastern Railway from 1893 to 1923. The Rococo interior — modelled on the Palais Soubise in Paris during a 1901 redesign — is Grade II* listed: gilded plasterwork, painted panels, and a mezzanine that once held the ballroom orchestra. It is a genuinely surreal place to have your twenty-fourth drink. Cheap, grand, and always busier than you'd expect.