At the top of Ladbroke Grove, I remember the Narrow Boat with the deadly stairs.
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The name rings a bell and although ilived only 500 yards from that pub I cant recall it.Unaware that any pub in the area sold Fullers beer.Must have passed it as I used to drink in the Cowshed,Village Western, prince of wales, earl derby and the prince Arthur.Watneys and Trumans were common beers.
Sadly now demolished it was almost on the Harrow Road, it was built on the side of the canal cutting and the bar was at road level the toilets were at canal level. A door opened from the bar onto a very steep staircase however the stairs were at 90 degrees to the door and there was no landing at the top; as I said deadly.
My wife dragged me in there as she trained at nearby St Charles' hospital (part of St Mary's in Paddington) and lived round there in the 70s/80s. She has some good stories of pubs and carnival in Notting Hill / Ladbroke Grove.
My mate's in his late 60s and has lived round here all his life. He says The Cowshed (originally Admiral Blake) was seriously rough. The Prince Of Wales went a while back, unsurprisingly!
Yes the Admiral Blake.Couldnt remember its real name. Think the Village was Lads of the Village.Yes the Cowshed was rough but me and my Scottish mates fitted in seamlessly. Another regular port of call was the Cobden club.Bar used to shut at 11 -12 oclock but you could buy a case of bottled beers and sit drinking them until 2-3 in the morning.
I was boating past this pub on a regular basis in 1983 and 1984 but never went in,despite it's GBG entry.It didn't have a mooring and the towpath there wasn't somewhere you felt comfortable leaving a boat.The same applied to The Flora ,canalside a little further down the Harrow Road.The only safe mooring was at Little Venice ,which meant the Warwick Castle was the pub of choice and also a GBG regular in those days.
Ah, The Warwick Castle, I remember it well. Between 81-83 I certainly drank a few pints in there, with my college mates, as our flat was only 5 minutes walk away. Perhaps the most memorable evening, now slightly surreal, was when a young Jim Carter (Mr Carson in Downton Abbey) was juggling on a unicycle, for the benefit of patrons sat outside. Happy days.
Oh, it was definitely pre-gentrification. I lived in a very basic flat in one of the lovely terraces, before they were all done up. In my time I used to see Arthur Lowe and John Inman pottering about in the shops on Clifton Road. I even saw Tula the (first?) transsexual supermodel in an off-licence near The Eagle. Used to see Les Gray (lead singer with Mud) in The Warrington occasionally.