John Sturgis

There’s nothing as sad as a bad pub revamp

Soul is an easy thing to lose

  • From Spectator Life
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The Flower Pot in Aston, near Henley, was one of my favourite pubs in the country, a charming, eccentric time capsule cluttered with esoteric decoration: dozens of cases of stuffed fish and animals, angling paraphernalia and Edwardian art; there was even a resident parrot. 

It was always rammed, with everyone from vicars to Hell’s Angels

The pub opened in 1890, at almost exactly the same time as the publication of Three Men in a Boat, and in a certain light, after a few drinks, it could feel as though one was actually inhabiting the quirky, late-Victorian England described by Jerome K. Jerome. So when I found myself in the vicinity at the end of the summer, fancying a swim in the Thames from the pub’s own jetty, which is just down a rambling lane from The Flower Pot, and then a pint afterwards, I diverted there. Only to discover it had been utterly ruined.

The first thing I saw on entering was a giant television screen showing Catchphrase. The old dark wood furniture had been dumped and replaced by velvet-covered stools. Gone was most of the trademark taxidermy, replaced by, yes, more wall-mounted TVs as well as garish conceptual art. Gone too was the parrot – though no doubt it had long been pining for the fjords so it may be better off now, unlike the locals. But, most upsettingly, gone was the charm. 

Those behind this desecration, new owners who took over The Flower Pot last year, evidently won’t agree with my critique. ‘The renovation was sensitive to its history and still in keeping with the feel of country house hotel and traditional pub,’ they write. ‘The pub reflects its owners’ passion for art and has kept some of the old taxidermy that formed part of the old character, whilst introducing a modern element.’

I wouldn’t say that a modern element had been ‘introduced’ – it was more a case of modernity steamrolling what had been there for decades. But then the people who destroy atmospheric old pubs always think they’re doing it sensitively. 

The first time I ever experienced this heart-sinking ‘they’ve ruined my pub’ sensation was also the worst time. This was at the Sussex Arms, a 17th-century coaching inn on a mews behind the famous Pantiles arcade in Tunbridge Wells, so named because it stood on the old Kent-Sussex border.

I celebrated my 18th birthday there in December 1984 but in those more carefree times I’d already been going – and getting served – every weekend for the preceding few years. Like The Flower Pot, the old Sussex was cluttered with quaint decorative touches, a trove of random objects hanging from the ceilings as well as the walls, and consequently more than a little dusty. But that was part of its appeal. And that appeal was immense – it was always rammed, with everyone from vicars to Hell’s Angels. 

It was a freehouse but always served the dependable local-ish Harveys. There were open fires. The veteran landlord, Denis Lane, was a provincial version of his famously rude contemporary, Norman Balon, from Soho’s Coach and Horses. Denis would come down to the pub from his rooms upstairs at 9.30 p.m. and whoever was sitting at his favourite table was told to ‘fuck off’. All part of the pub’s earthy charm.  

It felt like the Sussex would be there forever but in 1987, Lane, his health failing, sold up – to developers who wanted to attract a younger crowd. So they ripped out the whole interior, walls as well as fittings, and turned it into a soulless pseudo nightclub. 

They were rewarded with a pub that remained stubbornly empty for several years and had to change hands before it finally started picking up some punters. They then tried to restore some of the lost atmosphere with those ersatz ye olde pub trinkets bought off the peg making it a mediocre impression of what it had once been for real. Meanwhile, the original contents were sold at auction to an entrepreneur who shipped them all to Australia where he recreated an ‘authentic traditional English pub’ 12,000 miles from Tunbridge Wells. 

I’ve never really got over the destruction of the Sussex – and nor have many others who drank there with me. I still aspire to visit its reincarnation down under. 

The Flower Pot and The Sussex Arms are emblematic of the many pubs whose original charm is mourned after modernisation. Prior to my disappointment in Berkshire, the last time this happened for me was at The Wonder in Enfield – what was a delightful neighbourhood boozer last year but now, courtesy of a McMullen’s refit, isn’t. Others ruined by change suggested by friends include The Swan Inn in Chiddingfold, Surrey, The Anchor, further down The Thames, at Bankside in London, The Odd One Out in Colchester and The Windmill in Stratford-on-Avon. But there are doubtless hundreds who have suffered the same fate. 

The depth of feeling for preserving these special places was seen just this summer by the national furore that followed the arson attack and subsequent bulldozing of The Crooked House in Staffordshire. In fairness, with trade being what it is, I feel more than a degree of pity for those trying to make a pub earn its keep just now. And sometimes these drastic revamps must be a desperate last throw-of-the-dice alternative to outright closure. Sometimes though, the lure of change in the hope of reviving fortunes is resisted. 

Returning to Soho’s Coach and Horses, there was a major scare a couple of years ago that the brewery owner was about to tear the place up after evicting the then-managers. It hasn’t happened, remaining almost unchanged, and all the better for it. And it is even possible for the destructive process to work the other way and become restorative. 

I think of The Boleyn Tavern close to the old West Ham ground in Upton Park which has gone from featureless dump to sensitively-restored Edwardian gem – or The Carlton Tavern in Kilburn which was bulldozed by developers who were later forced to rebuild it… and did so remarkably well.  

But these more positive examples are swimming against a tide of heritage dumped. An old Fleet Street news editor I knew had a mantra to cover practically every internal announcement on his title: ‘All change is bad’. It adapts rather well as a catch-all advice to wannabe-designer publicans. 

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