[Drinking] The Lost Pubs Project

[mona]

Brighton is the place where the cult of changing pub names is most evident. It's a bit like the imperial colonisers who had to change Saghamurtha to Everest. Hey ho.

 

[beorhthelm]

Unbelievable, Petworth, my local town, now has 3 pubs. It has lost 21 pubs over the years. They used to like their drink back in the day.

i think this touches upon one of the major and often overlooked reasons for the loss of pubs: its no longer the main lesuire activity for many. time was that, other then cinema, going to the pub was the only thing people "did". now there is so much more, that mean the pub is the default for spare time. this combines with a number of factors, home drinking, stricter on drink driving, duties etc, are all contributing. there no one thing really, but i as i sit here reading NSC with a bottle of Hophead i think how many more things i could be doing than my Dad's generation who had shit all on TV, maybe some hobby, and the Pub to keep them entertained.

 

[ArfurW8]

Here's a question for you. I know Phoenix Breweries sponsored the Albion for a while in the 1980's. when exactly did they close? and where was the brewery?

It was in Richmond Terrace I think, not sure when it closed, maybe 1990.
Bens Grandad will definitely know this.

Edit, Sorry Theatre,just seen your previous reply.

 

[Gwylan]

i think this touches upon one of the major and often overlooked reasons for the loss of pubs: its no longer the main lesuire activity for many. time was that, other then cinema, going to the pub was the only thing people "did". now there is so much more, that mean the pub is the default for spare time. this combines with a number of factors, home drinking, stricter on drink driving, duties etc, are all contributing. there no one thing really, but i as i sit here reading NSC with a bottle of Hophead i think how many more things i could be doing than my Dad's generation who had shit all on TV, maybe some hobby, and the Pub to keep them entertained.

I agree. There are several reasons: as BG indicated, there's the greed of the pub companies as well as the factors you mentioned. The smoking ban has had an effect too (although not as much as people think IMO). There's also more of a clampdown on underage drinking - I started going to pubs when I was 16 and I'm sure landlords knew we were underage but tolerated us - there's much less of that now.

Two other factors: the wider availability of central heating. Pubs were a place to keep warm but in the 60s, 70s and 80s, more homes were heated making less of a need to go to pubs. And there's also the splitting of communities: people used to live and work broadly in the same area, which meant that a pub was a convenient place to socialise. Nowadays you work in one area, live in another and your friends are from another. When I worked in London, I rarely went to the pub after work as I didn't want to spend a couple hours travelling in bellyful of ale. There are just so many reasons for pubs closing, you can't pick one or two.

Having said that, I think Brighton has done pretty well to keep many of its pubs

 

[Super Steve Earle]

Closed around 1990, Free Butt was its former brewery tap, brewery located near The Level, behind the houses in Lewes Road and bounded by Southover Street to the north and Newhaven Street to the east. Now a mixture of housing and student residences.

A propos of nothing, used to play table tennis against the Phoenix Breweries team in the Brighton league...

 

[Wrong-Direction]

My uncle ran one of the now defunct Brighton pubs in the 50s and early 60s: the Lewes Road Inn. It stank of beer. As a five year old in 1963, I absolutely loved it

View attachment 72353

The franklin still does stink of beer on a Saturday night, although it has been done up now, I live about 3 houses up

 

[Eeyore]

[MENTION=26444]Wrong Direction[/MENTION] lives opposite.
According to my Dad he was in St Lukes School air raid shelter when the pub was hit

Blimey, your Dad may have known mine then. He would have been in said shelter.

 

[Eeyore]

Here's a list of pubs in Brighton in 1859 I posted here a few months ago:
https://nortr3nixy.nimpr.uk/showthread.php?328196-Historic-Brighton-Pubs

I'm currently trying to find as many old pubs as I can within the old parish boundary of Brighton and have currently found around 600 dating from the 1820s onwards. From the 1830s onwards there were two types; the inns and public houses licensed to sell beer and spirits and the beer houses which were limited to beer but could be set up by anybody in their front room for a small fee. Numerically, Brighton pubs reached a peak in the late 19th century and then began to scale back; losing out to the growth of cinemas, the First World War licensing laws, and particularly from the 1920s onwards the huge scale slum clearances. Another factor was the contraction in the number of breweries, initially small scale in the 1850s and 60s, these were eventually purchased or amalgamated with what became the main two; the Kemp Town Brewery and the Phoenix Brewery. Smaller pubs and brewery taps were often closed after purchasing. A similar thing occured when the main two were themselves swallowed up by the main national breweries, Charrington and Watney respectively, in the 1950s, with more smaller pubs closing particularly in the 1960s and 70s.

The Keep in Falmer is a splendid source of information. There will be local guides and directories stretching back that far.

My home area of Queens Park/Hanover is a classic. If you look at a number of end of row houses you can tell they once served another purpose- namely pubs. The place was full of them.

The James Gray photographic collection will have pictures of some that were pre-slum clearance. Some of the slum clearances occurred during the later 60s building projects on the east side of town. Pubs may have been lost there. At one stage Edward Street was a huge pub crawl.

Edit: Just seen the thread. Looks like you have seen that amazing photographic collection. I've spent hours on those pages.

 

[Braggfan]

The Keep in Falmer is a splendid source of information. There will be local guides and directories stretching back that far.

My home area of Queens Park/Hanover is a classic. If you look at a number of end of row houses you can tell they once served another purpose- namely pubs. The place was full of them.

The James Gray photographic collection will have pictures of some that were pre-slum clearance. Some of the slum clearances occurred during the later 60s building projects on the east side of town. Pubs may have been lost there. At one stage Edward Street was a huge pub crawl.

Edit: Just seen the thread. Looks like you have seen that amazing photographic collection. I've spent hours on those pages.

Somebody once told me in Hanover you can spot which end of row houses were pubs, because their front doors will be at the corner of the building and run at an angle rather than parallel to the roads. Which is just about every end of row house.

 

[heathgate]

As soon as successive governments raised the tax rates so much, pubs' days were numbered. It's a shame as they are quintessentially English.

It's not that at all, at least not the major contributor, it's the Pubco scenario that is doing the following.

1) Tied pubs are restricted to buying a limited choice of booze at high prices.

2) This strategy forces tenant landlords to turn the pub into food pubs to make any money at all.

3) Tied pubs that don't conform to the food model, fail because of the high prices required to make any money at all.

4) Pubco rents are so high that little improvement investment is possible by tennant landlords....another reason pubs become less attractive.

Down my way, it's only the partial tied, and the freehouses that thrive, fortunately in the village that I live in, pop 3000 there are three thriving pubs, 2 free of tie, and one partial.

In the next village only 1.5 miles away, there are 4 tied pubs, all failing. Enterprise and punch have a lot to answer for.

 

[Murray 17]

It's not that at all, at least not the major contributor, it's the Pubco scenario that is doing the following.

1) Tied pubs are restricted to buying a limited choice of booze at high prices.

2) This strategy forces tenant landlords to turn the pub into food pubs to make any money at all.

3) Tied pubs that don't conform to the food model, fail because of the high prices required to make any money at all.

4) Pubco rents are so high that little improvement investment is possible by tennant landlords....another reason pubs become less attractive.

Down my way, it's only the partial tied, and the freehouses that thrive, fortunately in the village that I live in, pop 3000 there are three thriving pubs, 2 free of tie, and one partial.

In the next village only 1.5 miles away, there are 4 tied pubs, all failing. Enterprise and punch have a lot to answer for.

I hadn't realised that. Seems like tied pubs are doomed to failure.

 

[heathgate]

I hadn't realised that. Seems like tied pubs are doomed to failure.

Indeed they are....and the Pubcos are carrying so much debt that they borrowed to buy all these businesses in the first place, it then becomes an easy decision to offload for a profit when approached by a housing developer.

 

[The Andy Naylor Fan Club]

No mention of "Strip" at The Ship, Lewes Rd . Used to be next door to Mithras house.

 

[Gwylan]

No mention of "Strip" at The Ship, Lewes Rd . Used to be next door to Mithras house.

And now the chaplaincy; very different clientele now .... or maybe not

 

[The Andy Naylor Fan Club]

And now the chaplaincy; very different clientele now .... or maybe not

Indeed. From one form of worship to another.

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

The killer for pubs was not the government as many suggest but the advent of the pub co Inntrepeneur, Punch Taverns etc in the late 80s early 90s,. Until then brewers realized that there was a lot of wasted floor space in a pub and also sold their beer so made the rent realistic. The pub companies took the floor space and based their rents on that with complete disregard for trading conditions and that was the start of the down turn in pubs and the basic cause of closure.

You forgot to mention the supermarkets selling cheap booze and in some instances selling the booze at a loss! Supermarkets also pay less tax on booze than establishments in the hospitality business. This changed people's habits and meant people frequented pubs less, combine this with sky high rents, pubco debt and the property value of pubs and you get the demise of many pubs unfortunately.

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

Somebody once told me in Hanover you can spot which end of row houses were pubs, because their front doors will be at the corner of the building and run at an angle rather than parallel to the roads. Which is just about every end of row house.

That also applied to shops too. My place was a butcher's in its previous life.

 

[heathgate]

You forgot to mention the supermarkets selling cheap booze and in some instances selling the booze at a loss! Supermarkets also pay less tax on booze than establishments in the hospitality business. This changed people's habits and meant people frequented pubs less, combine this with sky high rents, pubco debt and the property value of pubs and you get the demise of many pubs unfortunately.

I have to disagree about the shop deregulation...it added a new dimension certainly, but if you have a properly run freehouses pub, serving good beers, wines and ciders. ... they thrive.....in almost all cases, the pubs that are failing, are tied Pubco pubs with sky high prices, limited choice, disinterested managers and often kids running round and 2 for a tenner deep fried or microwaved everything.

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

I have to disagree about the shop deregulation...it added a new dimension certainly, but if you have a properly run freehouses pub, serving good beers, wines and ciders. ... they thrive.....in almost all cases, the pubs that are failing, are tied Pubco pubs with sky high prices, limited choice, disinterested managers and often kids running round and 2 for a tenner deep fried or microwaved everything.

So you think businesses that are so cash rich they can sell alcohol at a loss, which also pays less tax on alcohol didn't have much effect on the demise of pubs? You make a very valid point about well run firehouses, but I think there may be more tied premises and this is the type of establishment the supermarkets have contributed towards putting out of business. Cheaper supermarket booze combined with other factors has changed people's habits and because of this people visit pubs less these days.

The closure of many pubs in Brighton and the UK can be attributed to many of the factors that you have listed, but I don't think you can discount the supermarkets as one of the many reasons.

 

[BensGrandad]

At the same time as the pubcos came into being out attitude to pubs changed. It must be remembered IT was the original company like Watney, Grand Met or whatever you want to call them divided into being a property company and a separate brewing company which the monopolies commission eventually outlawed. The directors of the new company were existing employees of the company and as in the case of Inntrepeneur later to become Enterprise they retained the same offices in in Thame and also the invoicing etc and just changed the title and paper heading.


My rent pre Inttrepeneur for a small back street 'boozer' in Guildford was 12k per year which meant everybody made a living. St Lukes Hospital Nursing School closed 6 months after I took over and the rent demanded was £28k a year for 3 years going up to £34k a year. There was only ever going to be one outcome.and after I left a succession of leaseholders had it and initially the rent was about £28k but gradually reduced to £16k as leaseholders left after failing to make a living. The pub eventually closed and is now 8 flats.

When the no smoking was brought in I said I thought that the good pubs would survive but many small ones would fall by the wayside. I think the general attitude to pubs and drinking has changed working men no longer go straight to the pub after work and stay there until 9pm or later and I dont think that it is down to supermarket pricing totally. it is a change in attitudes towards alcohol and the excessive consumption. Pre 1990 it was the done thing to go to the pub but that no longer exists and people like me drink a lot less than they did. I havent been in a pub for about 8 months and have perhaps 2 or 3 G & T a week at home,.