Have a light ale with the occasional heavy thinker

If anyone needs convincing that pubs remain historical centrepieces of the capital, the recent extensive revamps of two are a reminder – both having fascinating links to musical and literary figures of the past, writes Yann Tear.

The Castle pub in Portobello Road has had a refit but is determined to embrace rather than airbrush the past, and why wouldn’t it, when The Clash, Joe Strummer and the Rolling Stones are all said to have frequented the place in years gone by.

And then there is the Crown and Two Chairmen in Dean Street, Soho – a literary pub dating back to 1736 and claiming as former patrons the likes of Karl Marx and George Orwell.

New soft furnishings, and new art works there reflect the pubs’ local heritage, the current trustees insist.

The Castle nestles at the heart of London’s bustling Portobello Market, officially reopened in summer 2022 following an extensive four-week refurbishment, giving the iconic pub an exciting new look.

But owing to the age and history of the building, some unforeseen structural works meant it was only recently that the new façade was finally ready for the big unveiling.

The Crown and Two Chairmen, situated halfway between Old Compton Street and Oxford Street in Soho officially reopened this month following its own extensive four-week refurbishment.

Marx’s London connections are legendary.

The German writer and political theorist moved to London in early June 1849 and would remain based in the city for the rest of his life. His tomb is in Highgate cemetery, of course.

It is fun to imagine Marx dropping in for an ale while debating the future of international communism.

The headquarters of the Communist League also moved to London when he came to the capital but a split within the ranks in the winter of 1849–1850, as Marx resisted calls for an immediate proletarian uprising and revolution, as advocated by rival thinkers August Willich and Karl Schapper.

Did the warring parties thrash it out over a yard of all at The Crown and Two Chairmen?

It probably serves the pub will to invoke such mythology. Few are around these days to disprove it.

Marx and Friedrich Engels protested that such an unplanned uprising on the part of the Communist League was “adventuristic” and would be suicide for the Communist League because they would be easily supressed by the existing Government forces.

Marx became heavily involved with the socialist German Workers’ Educational Society which held meetings in nearby Great Windmill Street. It would have made sense to repair to the Crown after such meetings.

And what of the much-travelled George Orwell – one of our most celebrated writers?

Did Eric Blair, as he was named at birth, find inspiration in those moments that would later translate into great works like Ninety Eighty Four and Animal Farm?

Or did he just drop by for a bit of mindless escapism?

Either way, the story goes that he was a patron, even if there is no evidence of literary greats massing in numbers to discuss the future of mankind in a way that has made Paris’s Café Les Deux Magots famous at St Germain-des-Pres: a place where luminaries like Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus and Pablo Picasso used to hang out.

Orwell lived in Hampstead, north London in the mid-1930s as a young man finding his way as a bookseller – but with a literary career already starting to flourish, having just had Down and Out in Paris and London published in 1933.

In pubs, we are often in the presence of greatness without even realising it.

 

Picture: The Castle Pub Picture: Pixabay/Terry