Pubs, we’re told, are in decline in an alarming way: London is down to around 3,400 these days, with 34 closures every month in 2024. This year, boozers look to be fighting back: this month, a revival of the Knave of Clubs in Shoreditch was announced, 30 years after it first closed. And looking back at last year, the restaurant hit of the year? Well, it wasn’t a restaurant at all, but a pub — the Devonshire.
But pubs have always come and gone, their names ending up as little more than statistics in news articles. And so, two years from writing the history of pub designations — What’s in a London Pub Name? — I wanted to look at those places that have disappeared. Not the Spoons that have opened and closed in a matter of months, but the historic sites that once meant something.
It’s called London’s Lost Pubs and is being published by Pen and Sword (you can find more information here). Getting it down on paper meant months of trawling through pub guides from years past, including several published by the Standard.
The stories are fascinating; at least, I think so. Below are 10 of my favourite tales from the book, of beautiful boozers from years gone by.
Black Cap
A pub with this name has been located in Camden since the 1750s, and by the Nineties, it was being called “the London palladium of late-night drag” in the Standard. It was known for the mixture of acts, from singers to comedians — or as the Standard writer put it at the time, the “formidable dames not to be crossed”.
It’s been closed since 2015 but was successfully listed as an Asset of Community Value and a long-running campaign to reopen this venerable institution is due to be realised later this summer, all being well.
Britannia Tap
By once claiming to be London's smallest pub with a bar area of only 200sq ft, the Britannia Tap generated so much interest from people wanting to see it for themselves that owners Young’s decided to expand in 1969. The accompanying media coverage saw wry journos remarking the pub was capitalising on its success by losing its unique selling point. Perhaps they were right; had it never changed, would people still be drinking there today?
The other interesting quirk of the Britannia is that it was only a few doors away from a Fullers pub, The Warwick, likely the smallest distance between pubs from these two rival powerhouse breweries. It closed in 2011 and was converted into housing.
Bree Louise
This well-loved Euston pub ended up becoming one of the unlikely symbols over the battle that raged over the mega transport project HS2. Run from 2004 by Craig and Karen Douglas, it became a beacon for beer lovers with well over fifteen different ales regularly available, and often scooped CAMRA awards. But in 2012 the pub found itself within the red line boundary for HS2 redevelopment of Euston and while the Douglas’s fought hard to save the Bree — taking it to Parliament — ultimately the battle was sadly in vain, and the Bree Louise sadly closed in January 2018.
Jack Straws Castle
Arguably the most famous lost London pub, Charles Dickens was known to drink here (though, admittedly, he was known to drink almost everywhere) and is said to have particularly enjoyed the “red hot” chops on offer.
The Castle was badly damaged during the Blitz and replaced with a new building which opened in 1964, designed by Raymond Erith. Erith claimed the new design was “Georgian gothic” but the Standard preferred “Grounded Mississippi river boat” (the Standard was right). The pub closed in late 2000 and was converted into private flats. There is still space for a restaurant on the ground floor, and the pub’s name remains on the side of the building, so perhaps there is hope yet?
Old King Lud
Occupying a commanding position on Ludgate Circus, in the Eighties the Lud briefly featured future TV star Dale Winton as a resident DJ. Winton later referred to it as “the filthiest, dirtiest pub you’ve ever seen” in a 1996 interview with The Sun. It was largely rebuilt in the early Nineties when Ludgate Hill railway bridge was demolished. Forget splitting the G, Standard reviews from the time mention challenges to drink two steins of beer as quickly as possible. Apparently the record was just under three-and-a-half minutes. It closed in the early Noughties.
King’s Head, Fulham
An impressive Grade II listed Edwardian building, complete with turret. When it featured in the 1995 Standard guide, the review referenced it as being somewhere for secret gigs, with recent (to the time) performances from Robert Plant and Paul Young. The pub had a huge beer garden which could reportedly accommodate more than 100 people. A little later on, punters could bring their own food to put on the barbecue in the garden — bring your own burger! It cycled through a variety of different restaurant identities from the early Noughties, most recently being The Courtyard, which closed in 2020.
Man in the Moon
Known for its impressive theatre and generally ornate interior, with large cut glass mirrors and decorative tiling, the pub was also reportedly a haunt of Christine Keeler, the woman at the centre of the Profumo scandal. The 1994 Standard guide paid tribute to a local called Fred, a loyal customer of 50-years who regularly drank 10 pints-a-day here. By the 1996 edition, it was noted that upheaval at the pub had caused Fred to take his custom elsewhere. The pub closed in 2002 with the interior gutted. Its latest guise is the restaurant Mestizo. No word on Fred.
Thomas A Becket
The most famous of Old Kent Road’s former pubs. During the Sixties, the first floor was used as boxing gym by Henry Cooper and was visited by a heavyweight roster of stars including Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. During the Nineties, the Standard guide referred to it in “a permanent state of crisis”, with a regular cycle of the pub looking on the brink of extinction only for a saviour to appear at the last minute before the pattern repeated itself. It closed for good in the early Twenty-Tens and is now a Vietnamese restaurant.
Two Puddings
This old East End boozer is a member of a small club of London pubs to have had a book written about it. A book written by one-time landlord Eddie Johnson, Tales from the Two Puddings, covers his recollection of the East End in all its Sixties glory, with tales of local villains and policemen drinking side by side, as well as its famous visitors, including Harry Redknapp (whose first meeting with his wife Sandra was at the pub). The book was adapted into a film of the same name in 2016. After 38 years at the helm, Johnson sold up in 2000 and the Puddings was no more.
White Hart
The closest pub to the HQ of Daily and Sunday Mirror from the Fifties to the Nineties, and popular haunt for their journalists. During this era, columnist and playwright Keith Waterhouse threatened to put the landlady's pet chihuahua into a sandwich and even got two pieces of bread ready. It also made a cameo in an Eighties news report when sacked football manager Mark Lawrenson tried to pop in for a drink, only to find it wasn’t open yet. Lawrenson was safely on the Match of the Day sofa by the time it closed for good at the turn of the millennium.
