The final CAMRA London Pubs Group tour of 2021 took place on 8 December when we visited four venues in the Kilburn and Hampstead areas. The tour’s theme was ‘The Three R’s’ i.e. pubs that have been rebuilt, revived, or restored.
The evening started in the Carlton Tavern at 33 Carlton Vale, NW6 5EU. This is the famous (or infamous) pub that made national headlines in 2015 after it was illegally almost completely demolished the day before it was due to be granted Grade II listing. The Carlton had been on CAMRA’s London Regional Inventory of Pub Interiors of Special Historic Interest. The owners were ordered to rebuild it ‘brick by brick’ and, six years later, the reconstructed building finally reopened as a pub. The original Carlton was built in 1921 by Charrington’s and the new pub follows the same internal layout, with a large public bar on the right, a smaller, better-class saloon on the left and a single storey ‘luncheon and tea room’ behind. An attractive feature of the pub is the ceiling in the left-hand bar, with its plaster foliage friezes and other decoration. There is similar decoration on a more modest scale in the luncheon room. Sadly, most of the original leaded window glass had long since been replaced. Three cask ales from London microbreweries are normally served here. This pub’s ‘R’ category is ‘Rebuilt’ for the reasons mentioned above.
A bus ride took participants to the second stop, the Sir Colin Campbell at 264-266 Kilburn High Road, NW6 2BY. This former Watney’s pub is recognised by CAMRA as having an historic interior of some regional importance and it retains plenty of inter-war fittings, including an island bar, good quality fielded wooden wall panelling, dimpled leaded glass windows (including a set at the rear of the bar leading to the tiny beer garden) and a cast iron fireplace in the left-hand bar. The pub is in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide 2022. Oakham Inferno, Purity Mad Goose and Redemption Kazbek are normally served here. The pub is named after Field Marshall Colin Campbell (1792-1863), a British army officer whose campaigns included the Peninsular War, the War of 1812, the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny/First War of Independence. In 1858 he was raised to the peerage as the First Baron Clyde of Clydesdale (hence the pubs named the Lord Clyde). This pub’s ‘R’ category is ‘Revived’, because it was closed for some time but reopened in 2017.
A few steps along Kilburn High Road, at number 274, is the Black Lion, truly one of the finest pub interiors surviving in the British Isles. This pub is not only Grade II* listed but is also on CAMRA’s National Inventory of Pub Interiors of Outstanding Historic Interest. It is described as an imposing corner-site pub built for Truman’s in 1898 to designs by architect R A Lewcock. It has a spacious, light interior, enriched with some particularly spectacular and appealing decoration. Pride of place goes to the series of four copper relief panels by designer F A Callcott depicting eighteenth-century ladies and gents at leisure at the supposed antecedent of the present pub. They are variously pictured enjoying a game of bowls, drinking and smoking, watching the inn sign being painted, and taking the waters at Kilburn Wells, the spa that lay nearby to the south. There is a deep and superbly ornate Florentine frieze in both main rooms and a richly decorated ceiling. When built, the main space would have been much more subdivided than it is now but there is still one screen surviving which was moved to its present position during a major refurbishment in 2003.
Originally it was at right-angles to the main road. There is a long panelled bar counter, original bar-back and fine etched windows on the side elevation. Despite the lack of real ale, this pub is a ‘must’ for anyone interested in pub architecture. This pub’s ‘R’ category is ‘Restored’, because in July 2020, just after the pub had reopened following the first Covid lockdown, a pipe burst in one of the guest rooms on the upper floor and damaged the pub’s ornate ceiling. Happily, the ceiling has now been restored.
The final pub of the night was the Magdala at 2a South Park Hill NW3 2SB which we reached by taking an Overground train from Brondesbury to Hampstead Heath. The pub is also on CAMRA’s Regional Inventory. It follows the gentle curve of the street and was built in mid-Victorian times to serve the developing neighbourhood. Like many similar pubs, it received a makeover in the 1930s and there are clear signs of this on the outside, with the buff tile facing on the ground floor and attractive strips of typical inter-war Charrington’s glazing in the windows. The left-hand room was extended and only the bar counter survives, the rest having been given a dull modern look. However, on the right is a pleasant and remarkably intact room from the 1930s. The walls are elegantly panelled to half height and there is a low-key Art Deco frieze. The bar counter is also panelled and follows the style of the walls, while the picture is completed by a Tudor-style pink marble fireplace. Two cask ales from microbreweries and three real ciders and/or perries are usually served here.
It was outside the Magdala that Ruth Ellis shot her abusive lover, David Blakely, in 1955 and consequently became the last woman to suffer capital punishment in the UK. For many years there were bullet holes on the tiled exterior but it is now known that a former licensee created them with a drill to drum up curiosity and thus increase trade. The pub’s name commemorates the 1868 Battle of Magdala between British and Abyssinian forces. The Magdala’s ‘R’ category is ‘Restored’, as it was closed for a few years and became neglected. Fortunately, its interior was carefully restored in 2021 and it reopened in the May of that year.
The tour was dedicated to the memory of Dr Geoff Brandwood, pub history author and mentor extraordinaire, who died suddenly and unexpectedly in November 2021. His obituary can be found here.
Kim Rennie and Jane Jephcote