Blog Tracker
16-08-2017, 12:09
Visit the Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog site (http://boakandbailey.com/2017/08/death-of-the-backstreet-boozer/)
The pubs we’ve lost in greatest numbers aren’t the big ones on main roads — they’re the often smaller, more intimate establishments on back streets and estates, where people actually live.Further evidence to support this view arrived in our Twitter timeline earlier this week:
Camberwell pubs, old and new (green = open, yellow = closed, red = demolished) pic.twitter.com/d6wcuuhQ85 (https://t.co/d6wcuuhQ85)
— Camberwell Clarion (@camberwellnews) August 13, 2017 (https://twitter.com/camberwellnews/status/896832047750287367)
And this summary struck home with particular impact:
Death of the backstreet boozer. Most still open seem to be on main roads https://t.co/RmgvNdhsKj
— It's a London thing (@urbanpastoral) August 13, 2017 (https://twitter.com/urbanpastoral/status/896838898688675844)
The map referenced (irritatingly uncredited at first, though they’ve since apologised and given him a shout out) is from Ewan’s incredibly comprehensive London pub blog*Pubology (http://www.pubology.co.uk/index.html).*Do go and explore it, and bookmark it, if you haven’t already. There are maps for many other postcodes (e.g. (http://www.pubology.co.uk/maps/ec1.html)) many of which show a broadly similar picture — red and yellow dots in the backstreets, green on the arteries.
In the new book (https://www.amazon.co.uk/20th-Century-Jessica-Boak-Bailey/dp/0957278721/) we give a bit of thought to how many pubs are closing, and which ones, concluding that it’s easy for middle class commentators to shrug closures off because it’s not*their pubs that are disappearing. This is another angle on the same issue.
We know @urbanpastoral is right from our own compulsive wandering: if you stick to main roads in London, or any other major city, there are plenty of pubs. But cut back a block and the story can be quite different. We’ve seen it with our own eyes — walked miles on the secondary route without seeing a single operating pub, even if the buildings remain, converted for residential, retail or some other use.
Coincidentally, on the same day, we came across a note of a parliamentary debate from 1961 (https://t.co/05yU7gLeIW) in which one MP, William Rees-Davies, saw this coming:
I do not think that alcohol is evil in itself. I find that drinking with meals is more beneficial than drinking without a meal. I do not want ‘pub’ crawling to continue. That is why I coined the word—I thought it was quite attractive at the time—the ‘prub’. I believe that we shall see a social change in our time and the ‘pubs’ will become all-purpose restaurants. I believe that we shall see the larger ‘pubs’ taking over and the smaller ‘pubs’ gradually turning in their licences.
(He was MP for Thanet, by the way, which just happens to be micropub central.)
It all makes sense in commercial terms of course and big pubs on main roads have many advantages. Backstreet pubs don’t get as much passing trade, obviously. They can be a nuisance for those who live near them, and are harder to police. (More on this coming up.) And smaller pubs especially, without room for kitchens, waiters, gardens, pushchairs, and so on, are at a particular disadvantage in the 21st century.
Of course there are many, many exceptions — Bailey wrote about one earlier this week (http://boakandbailey.com/2017/08/brigadoon-pub-greenwich/); and our old Walthamstow local The Nags Head is another. It’s funny, now we think of it, that those lingering backstreet pubs are often (to indulge in wishy-washy feelings for a moment) the nicest, being all the better for their seclusion and semi-secrecy.‘D
As it happens in our new neighbourhood, along with quite a few food-heavy ‘prubs’ on the A road, we’ve got a couple of surviving back street pubs. We’ll have to keep an eye on them. And, of course, drink in them as often as we can manage.
‘Death of the Backstreet Boozer’ (http://boakandbailey.com/2017/08/death-of-the-backstreet-boozer/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (http://boakandbailey.com)
More... (http://boakandbailey.com/2017/08/death-of-the-backstreet-boozer/)
The pubs we’ve lost in greatest numbers aren’t the big ones on main roads — they’re the often smaller, more intimate establishments on back streets and estates, where people actually live.Further evidence to support this view arrived in our Twitter timeline earlier this week:
Camberwell pubs, old and new (green = open, yellow = closed, red = demolished) pic.twitter.com/d6wcuuhQ85 (https://t.co/d6wcuuhQ85)
— Camberwell Clarion (@camberwellnews) August 13, 2017 (https://twitter.com/camberwellnews/status/896832047750287367)
And this summary struck home with particular impact:
Death of the backstreet boozer. Most still open seem to be on main roads https://t.co/RmgvNdhsKj
— It's a London thing (@urbanpastoral) August 13, 2017 (https://twitter.com/urbanpastoral/status/896838898688675844)
The map referenced (irritatingly uncredited at first, though they’ve since apologised and given him a shout out) is from Ewan’s incredibly comprehensive London pub blog*Pubology (http://www.pubology.co.uk/index.html).*Do go and explore it, and bookmark it, if you haven’t already. There are maps for many other postcodes (e.g. (http://www.pubology.co.uk/maps/ec1.html)) many of which show a broadly similar picture — red and yellow dots in the backstreets, green on the arteries.
In the new book (https://www.amazon.co.uk/20th-Century-Jessica-Boak-Bailey/dp/0957278721/) we give a bit of thought to how many pubs are closing, and which ones, concluding that it’s easy for middle class commentators to shrug closures off because it’s not*their pubs that are disappearing. This is another angle on the same issue.
We know @urbanpastoral is right from our own compulsive wandering: if you stick to main roads in London, or any other major city, there are plenty of pubs. But cut back a block and the story can be quite different. We’ve seen it with our own eyes — walked miles on the secondary route without seeing a single operating pub, even if the buildings remain, converted for residential, retail or some other use.
Coincidentally, on the same day, we came across a note of a parliamentary debate from 1961 (https://t.co/05yU7gLeIW) in which one MP, William Rees-Davies, saw this coming:
I do not think that alcohol is evil in itself. I find that drinking with meals is more beneficial than drinking without a meal. I do not want ‘pub’ crawling to continue. That is why I coined the word—I thought it was quite attractive at the time—the ‘prub’. I believe that we shall see a social change in our time and the ‘pubs’ will become all-purpose restaurants. I believe that we shall see the larger ‘pubs’ taking over and the smaller ‘pubs’ gradually turning in their licences.
(He was MP for Thanet, by the way, which just happens to be micropub central.)
It all makes sense in commercial terms of course and big pubs on main roads have many advantages. Backstreet pubs don’t get as much passing trade, obviously. They can be a nuisance for those who live near them, and are harder to police. (More on this coming up.) And smaller pubs especially, without room for kitchens, waiters, gardens, pushchairs, and so on, are at a particular disadvantage in the 21st century.
Of course there are many, many exceptions — Bailey wrote about one earlier this week (http://boakandbailey.com/2017/08/brigadoon-pub-greenwich/); and our old Walthamstow local The Nags Head is another. It’s funny, now we think of it, that those lingering backstreet pubs are often (to indulge in wishy-washy feelings for a moment) the nicest, being all the better for their seclusion and semi-secrecy.‘D
As it happens in our new neighbourhood, along with quite a few food-heavy ‘prubs’ on the A road, we’ve got a couple of surviving back street pubs. We’ll have to keep an eye on them. And, of course, drink in them as often as we can manage.
‘Death of the Backstreet Boozer’ (http://boakandbailey.com/2017/08/death-of-the-backstreet-boozer/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (http://boakandbailey.com)
More... (http://boakandbailey.com/2017/08/death-of-the-backstreet-boozer/)