The Canonbury, Islington

Tucked away from the bustle of nearby Upper Street, the Canonbury is a discreet piece of London literary history. A regular haunt of George Orwell, the Canonbury was one of the pubs the author amalgamated for his classic 1946 essay the The Moon Under Water. Living just a stone's thrown away in Canonbury Square, the author valued the pub – sadly now modernised inside – for the protection that the walled garden offered his young son from the bomb-damaged tenements outside. The huge spreading chestnut tree that still stands outside was inspirational for Orwell during his writing of Nineteen Eighty Four.
• 21 Canonbury Place, N1, thecanonbury.com

The Dove, Hammersmith

The Dove's vantage point over the Thames offers something akin to a shortcut to a different city. It's shoebox-like on the inside – the public bar is minuscule – but the waterfront terrace provides temporal escape. London's chaos has gone, replaced with a Home Counties quiet. Owned by the Fuller family for three centuries, the Dove is steeped in pub lore – legend has it poet James Thomson wrote the words to Rule Britannia here, and in the 1940s the Dove became a regular haunt of Alec Guinness, Dylan Thomas and Ernest Hemingway.
• 19 Upper Mall, W6, dovehammersmith.co.uk

The White Hart, Stoke Newington

From the street – the grimy stretch of the A10 that connects hip Dalston to the boho, foodie end of Stoke Newington – you'd never guess that the White Hart hides a sprawling two-tiered terrace at the back. While the downstairs bar is the sort of dimly lit dive you could imagine yourself losing whole days in, the garden is a gloriously rough-and-tumble plot that manages to repel most of the more irksome denizens of the pub's neighbouring streets. An unfussy selection of well-kept beers makes this green space the perfect place to sit and sup.
• Stoke Newington High Street, N16, antic-ltd.com/whitehart/index.html

The Britannia, Hackney

Barely more than a well-aimed javelin shot from the Olympic village, the Britannia is one of the nearest pubs to this summer's action. It is blessed not only with a huge garden but one of east London's most beautiful green spaces – Victoria Park – just beyond the fence. A rotating beer selection that always features local East End breweries, and a huge outdoor barbecue area that gets fired up whenever the weather suits, makes this the ideal escape from the Olympics if the McFood and the £7 cooking lager get too much.
• 360 Victoria Park Road, E9, thebritanniapub.co.uk

The Betjeman Arms, St Pancras Station

With weather ever an uncertainty in the capital, the Betjeman offers the best of both worlds. A huge terrace – occasionally featuring a temporary outdoor bar – offers drinkers plenty of seating space under the magnificent arc of St Pancras's glass ceiling. For trainspotters, there are uninterrupted views of the Eurostar trains gliding home; for beer enthusiasts, there's a specially concocted Betjeman Ale from Cornwall. Best of all – should the sun miraculously appear, you can quickly nip out the front with a pint and pretend you're a resident of the opulent St Pancras hotel next door.
• St Pancras International Station, N1, geronimo-inns.co.uk/thebetjemanarms