personal underlines
Last orders: farewell to my 300-year-old local pub
What hope is there for those that are left?
The Cherry Tree on Southgate Green began life as a coaching inn on one of the historic routes from London to York and beyond. It has been trading since 1695, when what are now the north London suburbs were open fields. But the other evening, the pub – my local – rang last orders for the final time. The brewery that owns it is having it refurbished as a brasserie, its pub status coming to an end after 330 years.
I went on its final evening for the closing-down party. It was like being in an episode of EastEnders, in the sense that it was a pub full of faces you dimly recognised from events long past, drinking and being jolly, like the Queen Vic at Christmas.
Becoming a brasserie seems an unlikely route to financial redemption for the Cherry Tree, though. There’s already another quite good one of those only 50 yards away, while another brasserie that was even better, just a little further, recently closed down after struggling for custom.
Of course, the phenomenon of pubs repurposing or rebranding against local wishes is nothing new. I recall, for example, writing an Evening Standard feature about the questions in parliament and local uproar when Dulwich’s historic Plough pub, which had given its name to various streets, businesses and even a bus route, was renamed the Goose and Granite. And that was almost 30 years ago.
That new name was dropped ten years later. And I’m not sure Ye Olde Cherry Tree – as my local lately insisted on calling itself – will fare any better than that ill-fated Goose.
While the premises are listed, it remains unclear if the brasserie will retain the Cherry Tree name. But since the nearby Woolpack became a Turkish restaurant 15 years ago, the Cherry Tree had been the only pub for more than half a mile in any direction in an area of quite high population density. Its failure to be financially viable with that small monopoly seems particularly grim.
But then these are grim times for pubs everywhere. One study found that as many as eight pubs a week were closing by the end of last year. On a recent weekend trip to Suffolk (which was essentially a 48-hour pub crawl) the best-run pub we encountered was the Lion at Theberton. The owner, Tom Lagden, has a background in theatre and it showed. He brings an indefatigable energy to running a pub, having events, ever-rotating local beers and ciders, an interesting menu, fresh daffodils on every table, well-stocked bookshelves and esoteric rather than generic wall art. He offered both metaphorically and literally a warm welcome between his enthusiastic greeting and a roaring fire. Tom’s big personality and energy is carrying the place. And the Lion has won awards as a result.
At the opposite end of the spectrum I have encountered some spectacularly badly run pubs lately, with receptions ranging from frosty to carping or practically hostile. One charmer in Essex left a disproportionately angry note on my car windscreen for having the audacity to park in his large, empty car park before taking off for a short walk. I had been fully intending to spend my money behind his bar on my return. In the event I spent it elsewhere.
Of course not every publican can have a constant real fire blazing, but some have been noticeably cold. Or they are closed at odd hours – like weekend lunchtimes. Or they hit you with something rude as soon as you walk in: ‘This area is for people who are dining only’ when you are still standing, getting your bearings in an otherwise empty room.
Lately I have begun to suspect that this kind of incongruously chilly welcome is a deliberate tactic: turn custom away, reduce your takings steeply and thus demonstrate that the pub is financially non-viable before you close it down on this basis. This in turn makes it more likely that you will eventually win planning permission for a change of usage from business to residential. Then you can clean up by converting your pub into flats.
Close to that wonderfully well-run Lion in Suffolk, a derelict pub was recently put up for sale at auction. The Magpie in Little Stonham dates from the 15th century, is Grade II-listed and its premises are quite substantial. But it sold for just £220,000. With planning permission to convert to residential it would be worth ten times as much. This is pub-onomics 2025.
There are also cases like the Crooked House in Staffordshire – or ‘Britain’s wonkiest pub’ as it became popularly known – which provoked national uproar when it was burned down in a suspected arson attack two years ago. The 18th-century pub was a well-known local landmark and while it was not listed, it was registered on the Historic Environment Record as a building of local importance. Its owners are still contesting the council’s order that the pub should be rebuilt to its original condition on the site. They argue the project would be disproportionately costly, and the isolated location and lack of footfall would mean the rebuilt pub would not be viable.
Then there’s the syndrome of chipping away at the amount of pub space that’s publicly open. Just last month we’ve seen this happening to two well-known London pubs. The Magdala in Hampstead (famous for Ruth Ellis shooting her boyfriend) is losing a function room, while the Wheatsheaf off Charlotte Street in Fitzrovia (where Dylan Thomas drank – to excess) is seeing its upstairs bar become flats despite local objections.
London is already full of the ghosts of dead pubs. Just in Tube station names we have Angel, Elephant and Castle, Manor House, Royal Oak and Maida Vale, all named after pubs that no longer exist. And last month a new one was added to this list: Ye Olde Swiss Cottage pub, along from the station named after it, closed down on 1 February, just short of its 200th birthday.
Among the people at the Cherry Tree on its last night was my daughter’s friend Lorcan who has lived just a few doors away since early childhood. He also worked behind the bar for a spell. And Lorcan told us of the person who will be worst affected by its change of use: an old chap who, for years now, has come in every afternoon, seven days a week, to sit at the bar on his own, Southgate’s own Norm from Cheers. The Cherry Tree may not have been a great pub but it was where everybody knew his name. I can’t see them indulging him at a brasserie. And I can’t see a brasserie still being there in 330 years.
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