Holloway Pubs: Surprising historic pubs in a rough part of London 

Yes I definitely got that sense of a bit of an Irish community around there. Really delighted to get a pint for under a fiver in London - especially when it's actually good!

Oh wow - what are the chances? Yes I was trying to peer through the fence to see if I could get a glimpse of the redevelopment. As you do.

Very happy to hear that Ed! I did think the Prince Edward had a lot going for it. Easily my favourite pub of this bunch.

Thanks Andrew! Yes it does seem this area is a bit of a desert for real ale (if I'm honest even in the 2 pubs which had hand pumps, I got an overall sense it was a bit lacklustre and neither of those Timothy Taylord Landlords were quite tip-top)... but horses for courses, when in Rome, and all that. I don't mind Guinness now and again, and at least one of those pints of the black stuff was a stellar example of the breed.

@@TweedyPubs I find it difficult now to recall how difficult it was to find real ale in the 70’s and how blessed we are today. So to see that there are still pubby pubs out there without real ale is quite an eye opener for me. I hope there is not an underlying trend. 🥴

@dolinskiatcarpathian I know what you mean - it's interesting how some places sort of fall between the cracks on that front... I tend to assume that a pub like the Prince Edward (wet led / historic interior / caters to an older clientele) would be pretty much guaranteed to serve real ale... but it seems there are some surprisingly beautiful urban pubs like this where that was just never really the case. Of course "Watney's Red Barrel" was the original scourge against which CAMRA was fighting, so perhaps it is fitting that the Prince Edward is one last hold out, with all that Watney's branding all over the place. I loved it just the way it was and the more I think about it, the more I think shoehorning in some hand pumps now might actually spoil the authenticity of it!

@@andrewdolinskiatcarpathian I worked in pubs as a barman in 1971/72 there was still bitter and mild kept on the handpumps as staples alongside the many variants of keg bitter and mild. A few years later it was disappearing. Amazingly, Whitbreads which had done so much to kill real ale with their Whitbread Tankard, relented and helped kick start the real ale revival in the 80s with Castle Eden, a lovely creamy bitter. The fact that Whitbread had done this, lent strength to the campaign.

@@liamkatt6434 Thank you for your interesting recollections. The ubiquitous hand pumps with either bitter or mild are indeed my earliest recollections. You never walked into a pub and asked for a pint by name. All pubs in my area of West London were tied and it was a case of buying a round of “five pints of bitter”. It meant you went on pub crawls to go from tied house to tied house in search of a different taste of beer, Truman, Fullers, Ind Coope, Bass, Whitbread and Courage. Obviously Watney was shunned. 😂

Thank you! It's not a part of town I know very well but I found it interesting learning about the history and the Prince Edward was a bit of a gem!

My daughter was born at the Whittington Hospital at the end of Holloway Road and knowing the good pubs in the area was important! Prince Edward being one of them. Keep up the good work!@@TweedyPubs

Dogbolter.... Wasn't that a firkin ales brew..?

Thanks Liam! Yes I suppose in a way their size and magnificence is part of their downfall - often quite hard to find a new use for spaces like that once they're no longer a viable business as a cinema.

@@TweedyPubs Yes most were so large that they covered at least one old well. I saw many of these fitted with sump pumps to prevent flooding. The old Regal in Godalming (now demolished) had a well or spring that was visited by frogs through some subterranean passageway. The Ritz in Birkenhead was so large it had three wells and an underground river which you could access by a metal ladder.

Thank you! Yes I think my theory that this not-very-touristy corner of London might be harbouring some unspoilt gems was vindicated by the Prince Edward there, and I found it wonderfully nostalgic too. It's hard to imagine with all the commercial pressures that a more centrally located pub would be able to retain an interior like that. Although I suppose it did slightly remind me of the Coach and Horses in Soho with some of that 1960s brewery signage. I found the vanity of Mr Enkel oddly hilarious and I don't think I've ever encountered a case before where a landowner builds a brand new pub and just names it after themselves! Of course it's fine if someone else names a pub after an individual of some note (or notoriety), and sometimes pubs are informally referred to by the name of the landlord if they're a bit of a character (thinking again of the Coach and Horses in Soho, sometimes colloquially referred to as "Norman's"). All of that said, were I ever in the position of building a pub the temptation to call it the "Tweedy Arms" would be quite high! I do think there's something quite special about coaching inns, and finding one "buried" beneath that obviously very young-person-focused pub was very satisfying. The cheesecake discovery also very satisfying - I do like to keep things eclectic here on Tweedy Pubs!

It's not an area I've ever spent much time in before, and I was pleasantly surprised!

I was on the fence until I saw the Sinclair C5!

Glad you liked that bit Donald! I was considering trying to sneak in and get some footage of the interior as that's really impressive but thought that might be going a bit too far off the pub theme! I do feel like they could maybe make a bit more use of the space - there's that mezzanine layer above the foyer which is crying out for a bar!

I'm with you Kevin, I think there are great pubs to be found at both ends of the spectrum, from the showy pubs of central London (where, on the downside, you'll probably never see the same face twice) to these kind of community boozers out in the boroughs.

Thanks Eric! I have a friend in Lewisham, I'll have to take a look next time I'm down that way.

Yes it's reassuring. It'll be interesting to see how how that works as an ex-Wetherspoons.

I agree I do need to cover a bit more south of the river. I have at least done a Greenwich video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nvTVdyaCvcY.html ...although perhaps not my finest hour - I had a friend with me who made some suggestions and things went a bit awry in the middle. I also very briefly went to Bromley for this Christmas special at the end of last year (warning contains terrible singing): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-z0dQCckdoj8.html

The Coronet is indeed an art deco gem - and I look forward to the time when the Odeon up the road is also converted to a pub! 😂 I literally grew up with real ale (my parents ran a pub when I was a kid, and they were some of the very early members of CAMRA), so it's in my blood and all that... but that said, I feel more at home in an old fashioned pub like the Prince Edward (even if it only serves keg beers) than I would in a trendy modern "pub" which has hand pumps, but they're all given over to those American style grapefruit flavoured IPAs. Probably a bit controversial I know!

There's a shot of the lineup on the bar at 5:40 and a half of Timothy Taylor's Landlord was £2.50, so presumably £5 a pint. I found typically when that's in a lineup it's one of the more expensive ales. This was actually my first time in the Coronet, so I'm not sure what the prices were like when Wetherspoons were running it. I'd guess they have gone up a bit since then but £5 for a pint (of a beer I'd actually want to drink) is still not bad for London.

She was a real credit to the establishment! I'd quite understand a bit of eye rolling etc from a twenty-something having to deal with a weird middle aged man in tweed coming into the pub taking photos of all the fixtures and fittings (I did ask first if that was ok!) but she just smiled politely and let me get on with it.

@@TweedyPubs Excellent, I guess thats very rare for her to see someone taking pictures of the pub and not of people, makes a refreshing change lol, well I suppose if the pub doesnt quite make the grade at least there is something else more pleasant on the eye 😁

Thanks Al! As I mentioned in the video a couple of these pubs are bordering on the sort of place where you walk through the saloon doors, the piano player stops, and everyone turns around to look at you! ...but I was on my best behaviour and the staff / locals I spoke to were actually all very pleasant. So maybe it was all in my head?

Those are my favorite kind of pubs indeed..superb work on your part.@@TweedyPubs

Yes I noticed that on the map too! I did get the sense Holloway is a bit of an unloved corner of London where it's perhaps a bit too easy to get away with knocking some great edifice down and build something else... However Holloway's saving grace may be that (to date) many developers just aren't interested in this part of town!

It was the Royal Northern Hospital, not 'Great'.

Here was me thinking I had unearthed a hidden gem nobody would have heard of and now you're the second person who has said in the comments you've been there! I hope your pints of Guinness were as good as mine!

@TweedyPubs it is a hidden gem alright.

OK I'll give it a go - thanks for the tip!

Sorry to hear that! It was a bit drizzly towards the end of the day but nothing too serious. I don't think I've ever seen Holloway in sunny weather!

I completely understand what you mean about not really liking this channel to begin with. I think it's a good thing on RU-vid that normally for any given topic there are lots of different people covering it, they'll all bring their own style / personality / focus / knowledge etc. We all enjoy pubs in a slightly different way and it stands to reason that some people will watch my videos and not really get on with the approach I take. That said, I'm surprised there aren't more RU-vid channels about historic pubs as there's clearly an interest in the subject: this channel is a lot more popular than I expected it to be! Hopefully if nothing else my videos might persuade other people to do something similar and we'll get a better range of personalities covering the subject.

@@TweedyPubs 👍

Thanks Seán! I recorded some of the talking bits for the Prince Edward and the Enkel Arms in a local park, while I was waiting for the last pub to open - so yes there definitely could have been passing dogs! I don't recall the particular breed though.

@@TweedyPubs That background talking bit was brilliant!

Alas closed for good in 2013... 😢

@@TweedyPubs I used to drink in there before it was demolished and rebuilt as the steam ship if I remember correctly and the Scottish singer, Barbara Dickson used to drink with us in there , she was lovely

I did talk to a couple of the locals and they actually were pretty friendly. You really could forgive them for not being: "Here I am trying to have a quiet pint and this idiot in a tweed suit starts banging on about Victorian partitions!"

Yes I read that! A slight surprise as I remember it being Reading where he did time - although perhaps Holloway was just a temporary arrangement.

@@TweedyPubs I thought it was before Reading but apparently it was after. The Home Secretary apparently feared unrest outside of Reading Prison on the day of Oscar's release and made special arrangements for him to be taken to Holloway to spend his last night of imprisonment. He walked to freedom through the gates of Holloway prison.

@@liamkatt6434 Interesting! I wonder if he headed straight to the Prince Edward?

I was mostly relying on CAMRA's list of historic pub interiors for this trip, plus the Coronet was one I already had on my radar from when I was planning that Wetherspoons video. The Grafton isn't on CAMRA's pub heritage list, sounds like maybe they should consider it though! I'll know for next time I'm in the area!

I did take a quick look at it on Google Maps but I thought from the photos it had perhaps gone a bit gastro...? Maybe I judged it unfairly? I'm not very familiar with the Holloway area so I was being heavily guided by CAMRA's pub heritage site on this one, and pretty much went to all three pubs they had listed around here (plus the Coronet which had been on my mind since that Wetherspoons video, but I didn't include it there because it had already been sold on by then).

@@TweedyPubs​ As almost all pubs, it serves food to survive, but it is a friendly mid-Victorian local. The inside is quite original to my eye, but opened up to a single bar. "Morning Advertiser 05 November 1863 : The Grafton Arms, Grafton road, Seven Sisters road, Holloway has been built within the past few months, and from its position must inevitably reap the entire benefit of the enormous neighbourhood by which it is surrounded, as no other Licensed House will be permitted upon the estate. The premises, among other advantages, possess those of a coachhouse and stabling. The Lease has about ninety years unexpired, at a ground rent of £30."

I’ll never look at a pub the same way again! 😂😂

I do love a Corinthian capital! I think we might need a different bingo card for the pubs channel?

@@TweedyPubsoh, I don’t know: “hello ladies” will surely crop up…

@@barryconway 😂 Perhaps not in the Prince Edward though!

@@TweedyPubs next time you're in the vicinity of Wendover: The White Swan on Wendover High Street - just an *ordinary* pub. Where "ordinary pub" is now such a rare thing. Generally a nice selection of pumps (with guests) and regular kegular. Used to be Fullers (but, well you know...) now owned by another brewery, but I gather that the landlord has negotiated the right to put what he wants on the pumps, which is a very good thing. Their Guinness is *also* good. Tell them "Balloon Chris and Barry sent me" (and you'll likely be barred instantly!)