I know a lot about London pubs, and this made me smile.
If you want to see the kind of old layout he’s talking about, almost any Sam Smith pub in London will do - they pride themselves on keeping it traditional - with the best and most striking example probably being the Princess Louise near Holborn. Just don’t expect any beer names you recognise - it’s a brewery pub that only sells stuff made by Sam Smiths (the beer), or branded Sam Smiths (the spirits, the snacks…)
Most of the others still exist, but I think have been refurbished quite extensively and not in a way he’d like.
However, there is some hope. Newer bars are opening that are trying to tap into a less sports-focused vibe. Some focusing on food, some on entertainment, quite a few on a wider range of more unusual beers (the “Tap” chain near train stations and just down the road from Farringdon for example).
Of course the dominant player in the mega pub “hall” space is Wetherspoons. Caverns - low-ceilinged cathedrals almost - to cheap beer and Brexit politics. They’re cheap, and so attract clientele who are price sensitive. That leaves more room in all the others for those of us who value something else, I guess.
The pub trade in the U.K. though is in trouble. It’s interesting that Europe’s largest consumer lobby group is based in the U.K.: CAMRA. It’s most interesting that the CAMpaign for Real Ale, started to protect traditionally brewed cask ale from being obliterated by the sorts of breweries that thought beer should be tankered like petrol, has had to change it’s target.
CAMRA basically thinks the war for Real Ale has been won. The rise of microbreweries has meant a plentiful supply of good quality beer is secure. But the pub is not. So now it’s become a bit more CAMPUB, and campaigns to save the business of public houses itself, the traditional bar games (skittles or bar billiards, anyone?), and the communities that sit in them.
The architecture is important, the interior should be considered, the screens have a place in some - but not all - pubs.
But it’s the people that matter, and at the moment the industry is in a mess.
It’s remarkable so many pubs in this article still exist. I don’t think many of them will survive another 60 years, perhaps not even another 10.
Enjoy them while you can.
> So now it’s become a bit more CAMPUB, and campaigns to save the business of public houses itself, the traditional bar games (skittles or bar billiards, anyone?), and the communities that sit in them.
Isn't it the case that the "pub scene" is healthy - revenues and number of pub employees hasn't decayed significantly, but the number of pubs has. A big part of that is people preferring the larger pubs - going to Wetherspoons for a cheaper pint from a wide range of beers (perhaps with food and sports) than a cosy local that is more expensive and has a limited range.
Unfortunately I can't see CAMRA being able to do much about the economics of a small traditional pub vs the current rental or sale value of the building its in.
Pubs used to be 11-3, and 6-11, give or take, whereas High Street restaurants, that can often also serve alcohol and family friendly, are 11-11, so it's not much of a surprise that they're converging, slowly to the same business model: there's not a pub in my area that doesn't do food, or coffee, or indeed breakfast. If you have a building that needs heating 24 hours a day, having revenue for most of that time is going to help, so a small number of those additionally offer free wifi for the WFH types, which actually seems to be beneficial.
Some of those pubs local to me, that have been purchased and gutted by smaller boutique brewery chains, have been turned into something indistinguishable from a coffee shop - the dangling light bulbs, brickwork, copper pipes. Coincidentally, I'm off to my local #1 CAMRA pub later, and it is much like the article describes. A typical pub. Dark wood, central bar, low ceilings, two bars (saloon and public), darts, and one tv screen. And it will be full by mid-afternoon through to the end of the day, which is unusual for pubs now.
It just seems like the main problem for pubs, and in fact, most of British industry, is costs, and that seems to be the exorbitant cost of electricity at the moment.
A lot of the problems started under Blair. Licensing for music was a horrible policy move. The smoking ban necessary, but brutal for pubs; ditto a crackdown on underage drinking.
In my forties, and I feel that my generation was the last to enjoy a particular pub experience which is now a rapidly receding memory.
The smoking ban caused a small bump - and we suddenly realised all the pubs had stinking toilets that the smoke had masked - but I think it actually resulted in both better environments for a wider audience, and a massive benefit to public health, particularly in working class communities. Long term, I think it led to a better pub environment for more people.
There have been consistent and regular crackdowns on underage drinking for well over a century - I don't recall a particularly large crackdown in recent years, but the licensing has changed: the Police now have more leverage over whether a publican and their property should keep trading than they did before, and that's meant a lot of idiot landlords who didn't give a damn about the social problems their idiocy caused have been forced out of the industry. Those who run a tighter ship stay in business.
By far the biggest shift seems to me, generational attitudes to drinking. When I was in my early 20s, I was in the pub pretty much every night (and many lunchtimes), and I wasn't alone, and was drinking with colleagues and friends who were the same age all the way up to retirement age and beyond.
The people I work with today in their early 20s might go out twice a month, and even then might only have 2-3 drinks all night. They're more likely to go to the gym in the evening, or to head home and watch Netflix or read their Kindle than to go to the pub.
It's interesting that low alcohol drinks are the biggest growth sector, and I've seen 0% beer on draught a little more in recent months. It might seriously help the sector if we just accept getting sloshed every night isn't good for people, people are realising it, and that you need to cater for that.
Tangential: As an American, one of the things I liked most about London pubs when I first started visiting in the ‘00s was the lack of screens, which were hard to escape in American bars. Unfortunately this was only temporary, as the majority of the London pubs I’ve seen on recent visits are covered with screens like home.
Sounds like you'd enjoy visiting a pub owned by Samuel Smith.
> Our pubs are havens from the digital world – there are no TVs or background music. The use of mobile phones, laptops and other tech is not allowed in our pubs.
In the 80s, Sam Smith pubs had a ‘25 pubs in London’ challenge. Get a drink in each of the 25 and get a T-shirt. It took me and a friend several weeks. There was a story of some guys doing it in a weekend. Hard because of travel AND opening times of some of the financial centre ones.
Good Times! And of course, no screens and no-one had phones (except in the financial centre and those came with an external battery)
As others say, Londoners/brits make a distinction between “pub” and “sports pub”, the former don’t usually have any TV (or it’s off, only used for big England games when every pub becomes a sports pub).
Contrary to your experience, I’m pretty sure that most pubs are not sports pubs in London
They do though. The old guard keeping the depressing pubholes alive do so by watching their football there. It's usually just one or two screens, granted, but they're there. Thankfully they can be easy ignored.
I'm not into them myself, but a lot of the ones that are struggling these days are the (non-chain) old man, football, working-class pubs in struggling towns.
I'm back visiting for the first extended period of time in a decade, and the bifurcation of the drinking/eating sector is striking. So many new fancy, up-market places with food, craft beer and eye-watering prices; so many shuttered old-school pubs.
It says a lot about where we are as a country.
No screens and at most of them no music either. Very few people drinking while standing. Just a pleasant place to have some beers with friends.
When I moved back from London to the US (where I’ve spent 90% of my life) I was so much more distracted by the screens than I had ever been before.
go to smaller pubs. They don’t have the footfall to justify the exorbitant commercial sports license fees and so don’t have screens. Fancier pubs and gastropubs also tend not to have screens
That's a sports pub.
Stay away from sports pubs/bars.
I've been in one which had tvs over the orinals, in sweden.
That's kinda brilliant. Nothing worse than missing a goal because you had to answer a call of nature.
What about whizzing on your hands because of your bad timing?
you were trying to head a corner kick?
Similarly the bars / pubs of the north east of the US had a similar vibe until the late 90s . I remember 3 places Jersey City , Hoboken , Union City had tons of no screen places or just one screen . But nyc had tons by this point . Now not having 2 tv is the song of death.
A view from (1946): https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
[snugs and gardens with plane trees and playground are still common in my area; they occur every 3 km or so]
EDIT: looks like "The Sloaney Pony" might have a garden? no, I think I'd call that a terrace.
Wow there is a lot to unpick here.
1. I think all the pubs he mentions have gone.
2. He was born and raised in Chelsea. That’s pretty rare now - Londonnhas undergone a paroxysm of middle class selling up to wealthy (foreign) investors and I would be amazed if any architects today could be born and raised there.
3. I love the detail of the balance bars on the pub lanterns. They are all gone because an electric bulb can operate even when swinging - but a candle or gas just need to remain upright - wow.
4. Cars - cars are hardly mentioned because this was 1966 and you could drink and drive, you can park anywhere because most people did not have / need a car
5. Men not families - again still the sixties
6. The rise of food and Gastropubs - it’s rare a pub can survive on drinking alone and being part of the lunchtime food trade is almost as profitable as evening drinking
Our “third spaces” do matter and reflect on us in interesting ways - going to come back to this article :-)
Most of the pubs exist still, I think.
The food thing has always been the case, it’s just that in the past you could make a bit of stew or have some pies in a warmer at the end of the bar, and you could sell them for a reasonable price, and make more profit than you would on same spend on beer (alcohol duty has been around a long time), but now, needs have changed.
That’s come from two directions. First, those pie warmers and stew pots would struggle with modern health and safety rules in relation to food, and compliance with the regs costs more money so you need more expensive product.
Secondly, consumer demand. A lot of central pubs now are dealing with far more tourists than were around in the 1960s as a consequence of cheaper air travel and changing drinking habits of local resident populations. Those two groups mean pubs have had to move to sit down meals, and at a near-restaurant price point. A few go a little under that level (Greene King and Fuller’s for example, they seem to do very well on food at a non-gastro price point), but they always knew food made more money than beer.
I think it interesting that Sam Smith pubs segregate the food. You can’t just order food to your table - you have to go to the dining room. This means intent has to be decided on as you walk in. I like it a bit, but actually, I’d prefer the Fullers experience more, in that if I have a couple of pints and then want to order a battered whitebait with a jenga of chips and some crushed peas, I can do that. :)
I think the “women in the workplace” social change has had a much more impactful change than the surface “gastropub”.
Looking at say the 30s to the 60s pubs were a mostly male preserve, and the vast majority of the spenders.
As society evened up its finances a little, women coukd choose and that choice was fairly obviously away from male dominated drinking establishments - over time of course.
Anyway the shift to more geneder equality has had HVD impacts across the board - weakening trades unions, holding down wages etc
I think I am wondering off the point but I reckon there is a six part tV series in “chnaging britain in a dozen pubs”
You forgot 7: the men with caps and pipes are no longer there because of the smoking ban. It’s just not a proper pub if there’s not some smoke spiralling up to the ceiling.
Beautiful bit of pub history in this video: Only You - Flying Pickets (apparently, The Red Lion & Pineapple):
https://youtu.be/The Red Lion & Pineapple?si=RJXNiaY5xe5pOtzx
there was a bad time in the 1960s, when this article was published, but the pubs that are managing to survive nowadays (non-survival for a variety of reasons - covid, taxation to name two) are much better than suggested.
Out of curiosity, I googled several of the pubs he mentioned. All but one* was still around.
*I found a pub called the Ranelagh, but it’s not in Pimlico, so I assume it’s a different one. It was the one he described as “really terrible,” so no big loss, I suppose.
Addendum: the other interesting thing I noticed was the ones he derided as having been “modernized” in the 1960s were also newly renovated today, with airy, Scandinavian, 2020s aesthetics. Presumably because unlike the traditional pubs, the 60s style became dated pretty quickly.
There is a pub called The Ranelagh in Bounds Green, North London which is near to what used to be a Middlesex Polytechnic site where the computer centre was located (DEC 10, two IBM 4381s, several VAXen and a couple of Primes) and where I worked in the mid to late 1980s. It was a hole then (still there, but I haven't been in for many years), but that didn't stop us programmers drinking there.
Much denser world network now
If they can survive being converted in housing stock. They are disappearing fast.
> The great brewers – Watneys, Whitbreads and so on—are disposing of all that rubbish: that’s out now, finished with, they say.
So was this the start of the great decline in the quality of brewing in the UK during the 70's that led to CAMRA and eventually to the microbrewery renaissance we had in the late 90's to 00's?
I moved to the US about a decade ago, but I feel like microbreweries were pretty rare in the UK during the 90's and 00's, I only really came across a couple living in Manchester at the time (a couple more have opened since) while there are several within a couple miles of me in San Francisco.
Most real ale in Britain was brewed in traditional breweries that had been going for a century or more that had either escaped being rolled into one of the majors or revived one of the old breweries abandoned by them, like Black Sheep in the old Lightfoot's Brewery.
By contrast the UK microbreweries often seemed more influenced by the US craft beer style which developed from home brewing since their traditional breweries were all shut down during prohibition.
I see - I got the impression that the 70-80's was a sort of dark age for beer in the UK, with mass-produced low-quality stuff from the likes of Watneys and Carslberg etc. taking over, which CAMRA was a reaction against.
> Quite shortly the English pub will be extinct, part of history.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
Many of the described style of pubs are alive and well, often in the form of a Sam Smith’s.
Tweedy Pubs on YouTube has many videos detailing historic pubs in London, worth a watch if you found TFA interesting: https://youtube.com/@tweedypubs
(No affiliation, I just enjoy the channel)
I mainly drank around UCL in bloomsbury and down at the Princess Louise near high holborn. Cosy snugs and a refurbished Victorian ambiance in the early 80s.
My parents drank around Shepherd's Bush in the 50s and 60s and "the goons" used to refine their schtik in the pub. Fun times!
Princess Louise is still there, same as it always was.
Around the corner is the Hercules Pillars which has been substantially refurbished, but still very comfortable and has some separation going on.
Most of the pubs around Bloomsbury have gone though. There are a few, but hard to keep it all going in an area where a lot of the housing lies empty - just owned by foreign investors, who are using it as a store of value they hope will appreciate faster than other asset classes.
There was one pub not far off TCR that had a nice sofa and fireplace. We'd always have one of us duck out early to secure the spot an hour or two before.
A random blog I found through Kagi Small Web is one man's journey to visit all the pubs in the Good Beer Guide: https://simeyeveritt.wixsite.com/brapa
It's such an interesting look into these slices of life, both current and former, that are so unlike my own experiences.
UK Pubs always have a style, they stick out when abroad. I've not noticed the same consistency of style in US bars/pubs.