Bar/pub recommendations near Portobello market
Discussion
As far as quiet pubs on Portabello on weekends, it may not be possible! You may have to roam a little further - The Ladbroke Arms or the Cock & Bottle were always pretty restrained and never got much of the tourist trade when I lived nearby (9 years ago). Of the list below, The Elgin or KPH were always fun.
On a 4 page tangent:
When I moved to London in 2008, my Dad was living in Notting Hill. He put together a rock 'n roll walking tour of the area which I shortened (!) to a pub
crawl + a couple of extra sights for last year's gentleman's get together which was very well received.
In "The Gate", Michael X wrote of the area:
‘There are many approaches to this place – some by road or rail – most by moral degeneration. Today I chose the bus…
In 1976, the Westway (just North) was at the centre of the Notting Hill Carnival. As the temperature rose, tempers were lost at what was then seen as an excessive police presence. After an attempted arrest here, the inevitable clash of police and youths came to a soundtrack of Junior Murvin’s ‘Police and Thieves in the streets, scaring the nation with their guns and ammunition’. Joes Strummer hid in the Elgin for a while before going back out to join the brick throwing. He was searched by police and then mugged by Yardies.
fee of £10. It hosted The Clash and Paul Weller numerous times and Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott was a regular.
10 minutes walk with 2 sites until next pub
After his first hit in Jamaica (a ska single), Blackwell founded the Island label and moved to London in ’62, to import American and Jamaican r’n’b and ska records. In ’64 he became the UK’s premier ska importer, and had his first production company hit with Millie Small’s ‘My Boy Lollipop’. On tour with Millie, Blackwell discovered the Birmingham r’n’b outfit, the Spencer Davis Group, out of which came Steve Winwood and Traffic.
As Island became the first big independent label in Notting Hill, as well as ska, rocksteady and reggae, their roster went through folk, prog and glam rock. Names include Jimmy Cliff, Bad Company, Iron Maiden, Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, Free, King Crimson, Bob Marley and the Wailers, John Martyn, Mott the Hoople, Robert Palmer, Quintessence, Roxy Music, Sparks, Cat Stevens, Spooky Tooth, Jethro Tull, Traffic, the Average White and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. The studios were also used by non-Island acts such as the Eagles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Dire Straits and the Clash (their London Calling album).
Having released the first Wailers single in 1966, Blackwell resumed his association with the group 6 years later. After Jimmy Cliff covered Cat Stevens’s ‘Wild World’, in the first rock/reggae crossover at the end of the 60s, Cliff left Island in the wake of ‘The Harder They Come’, and Bob Marley reappeared – from Neasden – after playing with Johnny Nash and being busted for grass imports. In 1973 Blackwell perfected the rock-reggae crossover on Bob Marley and the Wailers’ ‘Catch A Fire’ album, featuring ‘Concrete Jungle’ and ‘Stir It Up’, and the first Wailers UK tour was organised on Basing Street. Blackwell’s introduction to reggae came from being rescued from a reef by a group of Rastas in 1958; then the Wailers rescued him from prog rock. In the 60s he merged with Lee Gopthal as Trojan Records, which was based at the Saga Centre on Kensal Road, and set up the Blue Beat distribution network. The Indian-West Indian Windrush passenger Lee Gopthal built up his Musicland/Muzik City reggae record shop chain from his original Portobello market stall.
After Bob Marley was shot in the run up to the December ’76 ‘Smile Jamaica’ concert, the Wailers went into Babylondon exile to record their chart breakthrough album ‘Exodus’, on Basing Street.
In 1970 two famous albums were recorded at the studios at the same time: Led Zeppelin's Led Zeppelin IV and Jethro Tull's Aqualung. Similarly, Bob Marley and the Wailers and the Rolling Stones were in the studios at the same time at one point in 1973. Marley also lived for a short while in the apartment block of the Blue block of SARM studios for a year, which now is a writing space.
These days, the studios are owned by SPZ Group. The complex also contains the offices of SPZ owned record labels ZTT Records and Stiff Records and publishing companies Perfect Songs and Unforgettable. The studios are still very much in use - in 2007 Madonna recorded her album Hard Candy here.
St Luke’s Mews
St Luke’s Mews, which runs across All Saints Road, has hosted residences of Lemmy of Motörhead, Screaming Lord Sutch, Chet Baker, Joe Cocker, Joan Armatrading, Carol Grimes, Richie Havens and Neil Hubbard of Roxy Music. Paula Yates (TV presenter, ex of Bob Geldof, ex of Michael Hutchence of INXS) died of drugs misadventure here in 2000 - on the 30th anniversary of the drugs related death of Jimi Hendrix on Lansdowne Crescent.
Most local pubs have some Clash connection but, in this case, it’s not entirely positive – Joe Strummer cited the Warwick/Castle as his least favorite after being barred in the 90s. However, before he was barred, the Clash were regulars as were Transvision Vamp, World Domination Enterprises, Aswad, Raincoats, Skids, Rip Rig and Panic, Pogues, PIL and Members. A review in The Standard nominated Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) as a ‘pivotal customer’ and Jason Donovan, Matt Dillon and Harry Dean Stanton as regulars – dubious claims though they did all appear.
There was even a Live At The Warwick album, featuring the landlord Seamus Costello calling last orders, ambient pub noises, and the Clash roadie-poet Jock Scot reciting his ‘Ode to the Warwick’; in which:
‘Lords and bores rub shoulders with the pride of London’s building sites.’
The Warwick featured in such films as Portobello Pirate TV by JB of the Portobello Film Festival, and Aki Kaurismaki’s I Hired A Contract Killer. The Notting Hill pub in William Gibson’s cyber-punk novel Mona Lisa Overdrive has to be modelled on the Warwick.
The pub also has political connections - the Warwick stalwart John Duignan stood as the Class War candidate in the 1988 bi-election, on a ‘Stop the yuppie invasion’ ticket.
Perhaps the attraction of the Warwick was due, in part, to the fact that it was the Rough Trade pub – that is, the record shop local and literally. One of the spinoffs of this association was The Roughler – a publication that started life as the programme of the Rough Trade cricket team (the Old Roughians) but evolved into a Warwick fanzine cum Indie version of the Tatler.
Today, while the magazine no longer exists, you can find RoughlerTV on You Tube:
RoughlerTV is descended from Roughler Magazine, a boho pubzine which chronicled Portobello Life in the 80s. RoughlerTV launched with a daily webcast from Portobello Film Festival, based in our own temporary Roughler Gallery.
Looking back, the editor Welsh Ray Roughler-Jones (Alexei Sayle’s mate in the ‘Strike’ Comic Strip) says:
“We became disillusioned with the Warwick after 10 great years when we could do everything we wanted… When people used to live there more than hang out there... They saw through us in the end, they thought it was a boring old Paddy pub and they didn’t realise what was going on in there. Then they realised there were women in there, rock stars, actors and models getting in there.”
The roll call included Neneh Cherry, Andrea Oliver, Anna Chancellor from ‘Four Weddings’, Gina Birch of the Raincoats, Margi Clarke in ‘Contract Killer’, Ronna Ricardo from the Profumo affair, Wendy James of Transvision Vamp, Jerry Hall and Jade Jagger. Girlpower in pubs had been born.
In the late 80s it was Neneh Cherry who was the most significant regular and, indeed, she seemed to encapsulate all the requisite multicultural Grove style elements. Neneh first appeared as the 5th member of the Slits, then fronted Rip Rig & Panic with Andrea Oliver, and Float Up CP. As defined in Time Out: ‘She slips in and out of Portobello Road banter, New York street talk and fluent Swedish... She’s on nickname terms with the Face/Grove posse, and formulated the single from the Face ‘Buffalo’ fashion identity kit.’
Even at that time, The Warwick was the one remaining example of authentic pub squalor on Portobello. In the mid-90s, when the Warwick corner was the scene of a yardie driveby contact killing, a Roughler ad had it
still kicking aginst the grain, still a real pub, specialising in traditional ales and beers, cryptic crosswords, and extremely weird dancing. Mingle with the intelligentsia, spot the loonies, witness for yourself the only bar in Portobello Road with permanent and irreparable full moon syndrome.
At the end of the 80s, the most significant Warwick regular was Wendy James of Transvision Vamp. At the end of the 80s, she held court in the Warwick Castle with their second album ‘Velveteen’ at number 1 and Wendy herself the first Portobello pop pin-up since Marc Bolan. It can be argued that Transvision Vamp were the most successful local band, with top ten hits and million selling albums, but they fared less well than anyone in the press.
Transvision Vamp was originally a DIY cyber-punk sci-fi soundtrack tape, by Wendy James and Nick Christian Sayer, hawked along Portobello in the mid 80s.
On the Wendy website she describes Ladbroke Grove as a ‘spiritual powerpoint’, with an ‘accommodating dole office’, and recalls initially recruiting the bassist and drummer, Dave Parsons and Tex Axile, to spray Transvision Vamp graffiti around the area.
Wendy was dubbed the ‘Imelda Marcos of Portobello Road’, in a Standard article on Mario’s cobblers on Talbot Road.
Their ‘W11 Blues’ track begins with Wendy ‘walking down the line, heading for the Grove.’ After echoing the Clash and Hawkwind in encounters with police and thieves, she ‘strode on down the line to Grove… left out of All Saints across Portobello Road, underneath the Westway and into Ladbroke Grove, up 2 flights of stairs into a darkened hall.’
In the late 90s, the front door of the Transvision Vamp drummer’s (Tex Axile) former Westbourne Park Road abode, opposite the Warwick, took the starring role in Notting Hill the movie. Meanwhile the bassist became bigger than Oasis in the States as part of Bush (the Brit grunge group named after Shepherd’s Bush).
The journalist Ed Vulliamy has recalled the ‘lure of the Portobello Road’ in the late 60s with ‘all those ‘Sergeant Pepper’ jackets outside Finch’s.’ In the first Alternative London guidebook the Portobello Finch’s is down as ‘one of the liveliest pubs – rough enough to keep out Americans. You can play, sing or anything else provided you don’t need room to move.’
In the early 70s, when it was another busking venue of Dave Brock of Hawkwind, Finch’s was described in the underground paper Frendz as ‘where your cooler, more nervous, refined or trendy dealer goes to relax over a jar or two of plump barmaid.’ In Ed Vulliamy’s local teenage memoir, ‘soon it was legal to buy a beer in Finch’s, but not some of the other substances available there.’
After the glam-punk rock New York Dolls played London in 1973, Nick Kent, then of the NME, recalled the guitarist Sylvain Sylvain ‘in Finch’s back in good old Ladbroke Grove dealing dope.’
Over the rock’n’roll years, Keith Moon, Michael Moorcock, Julie Christie, Germaine Greer, Mick Farren, John Bindon from Performance, the Windsor chapter Hells Angels, Sex Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits were often seen here.
Though best known for his writing, Michael Moorcock was a member of Hawkwind and had his own group Deep Fix. In the 70s he lived across the road from Finch’s on Colville Terrace and included the pub in his Hendrix ghost story A Dead Singer – in which the roadie Shakey Mo had spent too long in Finch’s, suffering from severe acid rock withdrawal symptoms, and become Hendrix’s tour manager on the astral plane. He also included the pub in his ‘King of the City’ pub drugs guide:
‘Speed in the Alex. Dope in the Blenheim (on the site of E&O). Junk in Finch’s. They kept tarting up Finch’s and Henekey’s and we kept tarting them down again. As my friend DikMik (Hawkwind’s oscillator operator) put it late one evening; you could take the needles out of the toilets but you couldn’t take the toilets out of the needles.’
Moorcock wasn’t alone in his opinion - in the mid 70s it was described as the most evil pub in England in a tabloid shock-horror drugs expose.
In the early 80s the Finch’s local band was the Lords of the New Church; the former punk supergroup featuring Brian James of the Damned, Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys, and Dave Treganna of Sham 69. They named themselves after the Kensington New Church on Pembridge Villas.
In the early 1980s, Mick Jones of the Clash lived in Colville Gardens, just off Colville Terrace.
In the early 90s, the basement of the Cage heavy metal ephemera shop next door (now the Duke of Wellington toilets) was squatted for a series of speed metal gigs.
13 minutes walking, 3 sites to visit then pub
Over the road was a busking pitch of Dave Brock of Hawkwind. Also over the road, at 142 (now the Gong shop), was the location used for the ‘Travel Bookshop’ in the Notting Hill film.
Lansdowne Road features in most expensive street in London lists (average price of >£10mil) but on 18th September 1970, Jimi Hendrix died of a drug overdose here in the Samarkand Hotel. He was only 27.
On that night Jimi was with his girlfriend at her basement flat in Lansdowne Crescent at the Samarkand. Monika Danneman woke up to find Hendrix unconscious. He was rushed to hospital but never recovered. The forensic examiner concluded that he had choked on his own vomit after having taken at least 9 or 10 of her barbiturates chased down with alcohol.
The hotel is also remembered for the basement bar, which acted as the after-hours office of the underground paper Frendz and Virgin Records. The bar was also a favoured haunt of Siouxsie and the Banshees and Marc Almond (Soft Cell – you know, Tainted Love).
Carly Simon appeared in front of the Portobello on the cover of her 1971 album ‘Anticipation’ (unfortunately not including ‘You’re So Vain’, with Mick Jagger backing vocals).
In 1980, when U2 finally got the recording contract they wanted with Island records, the deal was finalised here. Today, it is Bono’s favored hotel in London. And Van Morrison invariably stays here when visiting London. Indeed Van Morrison wrote an album here while staying as a long term resident.
Tina Turner used to stay here but bought a house next door in the 80s. More recent guests include The White Stripes, Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Sinead O’Connor, Sheryl Crow, Lisa I’Anson and the Spice Girls.
The hotel has also attracted film producers – both Tim Burton and Francis Ford Coppola have been long standing residents. (Tim Burton apparently caused flooding to his floor from his bath - he was not alone at the time.) Other movie celebs to stay here include Raquel Welch.
Room 13 isn’t the only famous room in the hotel. Room 16 hosted Kate Moss and Johnny Depp who holed up there for days and apparently filled their bath with Champagne.
As well as normal rooms, there are also some microscopic “cabins” on the top floor. The Manager says:
"They have their uses. The scene in Alien when the creature explodes from John Hurt's stomach was written in one of them, because the screenwriter felt so desperate to break out himself."
Mick Jones from the Clash worked here as a night porter. After they became successful, another Clash member - Topper" Headon – often stayed to celebrate occasions.
Ahead, the tower of St Peter’s Church on Kensington Park Road appears in Spiceworld the Movie and Notting Hill the movie. The Fairport Convention recorded ‘The Lord Is In This Place’ in the church.
The pub continued rocking through the 70s in spite of some bad reviews. In 1966, The Grove newsletter contained a drawing of a ‘Heneky’s’ sign with a ‘Sorry No Coloured’ notice; in the early 70s, the pub received a similarly bad review from the Gay Liberation Front in Frendz. Meanwhile Mick Farren (Deviants etc) described it as ‘the prime freak pub of the time’. As such it began sttracting tourist and police attention, leading up to what was reported as ‘the biggest drugs bust in history.’
Like a few other London hostelries, the pub can claim to be the birthplace of punk rock.
Mick Jones first appeared at Henkey’s with his ‘decadent rock’ (rather than just glam) group, the Delinquents – who looked not dissimilar to the Darkness and described themselves as ‘punky’ in 1974. When they broke up, Mick Jones formed an alliance with the Hollywood Brats, London’s existing answer to the New York Dolls, after meeting the guitarist Brady at the Portobello market. British punk rock began, on Portobello Road in 1975, when this practise group chose ‘London SS’ as their working title.
According to one explanation, ‘London SS’ was a word play on life in London on Social Security, the name was a more successful attempt to out outrage the New York Dolls, with camp Nazi shock-horror tactics. Although original punk accessories were purchased from the notorious military ephemera stall in the antiques market, it was in the heavy rock tradition of Brian Jones, Keith Moon and Lemmy, to scare the squares, not as a political statement.
Members of the London SS went on to form the Clash, Damned and Generation X.
In the mid 70s, Henekey’s became the Virgin local.
In the 1976 punk summer of hate Sid Vicious and Viv Albertine (later of the Slits) formed the shortlived punk supergroup the Flowers of Romance during a Henekey’s session.
Through the 80s, the Lonsdale retained a heavy pub rock afterglow. In the 90s, Sarah Cracknell of St Etienne described the pub as the best place in London to hide.
In early 1967, Jimi Hendrix was staying up the road at 167 Westbourne Grove, when the property was painted purple. According to rock legend, on his return from a UFO club trip one morning, the sight of the house inspired his second single – Purple Haze.
The bulls
t level in Henneky's, by about 1972 or so, caused Edward Barker and Roger Hutchinson to walk diagonally across the street and check out a pub that no one used except a few dodgy used car dealers. But there was a pool table. It was called the Princes Alexandra -- The Alex. Boss, Lemmy, George Butler and I followed. Then Crazy Charlie and Hells Angels also adopted it. Bit by bit we made it our own and it stayed that way until it got too well known and full of Swedish Hawkwind fans hoping to spot Lemmy or Nic Turner. Ultimately it would be bought out, tarted up and become The Gold
In its heyday the pub was renowned as the Alex – the hells angels, National Front and speed dealers’ pub.
The pub was particularly identified with Lemmy who, when off the road, could be found on the fruit machine of the pub. In the early 70s, notables here included Hawkwind, the Pink Fairies, Sex Pistols, Clash, Damned, Ramones and Stray Cats.
In 1966, the Beachboys were filmed visiting the market in the Peter Whitehead short film, Beachboys in London. Dennis Wilson and Al Jardine first appeared in an antique musical instrument shop. This inevitably resulted in a trombone duel, outside the Princess Alexandra.
In 1977 the pub acquired the somewhat less hip distinction of being in Status Quo’s video for ‘Rockin’ All Over the World’, when they went by, pretending to play on the back of a truck.
In 2000 Dave ‘Boss’ Goodman, the Deviants/Fairies tour manager and underground food correspondent, was back in the Gold working as the chef when, following in the footsteps of Beachboys, Ramones and Stray Cats, the notorious American saxophonist Bill Clinton made a guest appearance on stage while Hilary and Chelsea did the market.
The singer Seal & the actor Daniel Craig have worked here.
In the mid 70s, a party thrown by the hippy socialite Sally Sparkle at number 64 turned into a heavy rock jamming session, featuring Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. In due course, this caused what has to be the hippest local noise complaint of them all, followed by the least heavy Portobello police incident, in which the rock stars were politely ushered to their limos.
At the end of the 20th century, Madonna’s bid for a property at the southern end of Portobello Rd (number 7) behind the Sun in Splendour pub was gazumped.
SO ENDETH THE TOUR, PLEASE TIP YOUR GUIDE.
On a 4 page tangent:
When I moved to London in 2008, my Dad was living in Notting Hill. He put together a rock 'n roll walking tour of the area which I shortened (!) to a pub
crawl + a couple of extra sights for last year's gentleman's get together which was very well received.
In "The Gate", Michael X wrote of the area:
‘There are many approaches to this place – some by road or rail – most by moral degeneration. Today I chose the bus…
The Elgin
The Elgin at 96 Ladbroke Grove. In a series of 30 gigs here between May ’75 and January ’76 a band called the 101ers put themselves, and Notting Hill, on the pub rock map. The band consisted of house mates of a squat at 101 Walterton Road. The driving force in the band was John ‘Woody’ Mellor who would change his name in 1975 to Joe Strummer. The band also included a Chilean exile pop star Alvaro Pena-Rojas on tenor sax. Most of their instruments were acquired from Portobello market and transported to gigs by pram. Joe Strummer’s first original number, the single ‘Keys to Your Heart’, and the Clash tracks ‘Junco Partner’ and ‘Jail Guitar Doors’ date back to the Elgin. At ‘the 101’ers’ r’n’b rave on every Monday night at the Elgin’, the audience frequently included the other future Clash members and some of the Sex Pistols.In 1976, the Westway (just North) was at the centre of the Notting Hill Carnival. As the temperature rose, tempers were lost at what was then seen as an excessive police presence. After an attempted arrest here, the inevitable clash of police and youths came to a soundtrack of Junior Murvin’s ‘Police and Thieves in the streets, scaring the nation with their guns and ammunition’. Joes Strummer hid in the Elgin for a while before going back out to join the brick throwing. He was searched by police and then mugged by Yardies.
The KPH, across the road from the last one
Urban mythology has it that serial killer John Christie was a barman at the KPH in the 1940s but it is true that his neighbour Timothy Evans, hanged for some of Christie’s killings (Evan’s wife and daughter), was a regular. The pub was the HQ of fascist Oswald Mosely during his disastrous bid for election to the Kensington North seat in 1958. Tom Jones performed here for his first London gig for the princelyfee of £10. It hosted The Clash and Paul Weller numerous times and Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott was a regular.
10 minutes walk with 2 sites until next pub
8-10 Basing St
From the late 60s, this was the site of the Island/ZTT/Sarm West recording studios and offices. Island Records was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica back in the late 50s, with his first jazz release. A member of the Crosse & Blackwell soup family, Chris is related to the Trellick Tower architect Erno Goldfinger. (This has the makings of a play on words, since Chris also came to own Ian Fleming’s Goldeneye house in Jamaica, after working on the 1961 Bond film ‘Dr No’.)After his first hit in Jamaica (a ska single), Blackwell founded the Island label and moved to London in ’62, to import American and Jamaican r’n’b and ska records. In ’64 he became the UK’s premier ska importer, and had his first production company hit with Millie Small’s ‘My Boy Lollipop’. On tour with Millie, Blackwell discovered the Birmingham r’n’b outfit, the Spencer Davis Group, out of which came Steve Winwood and Traffic.
As Island became the first big independent label in Notting Hill, as well as ska, rocksteady and reggae, their roster went through folk, prog and glam rock. Names include Jimmy Cliff, Bad Company, Iron Maiden, Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, Free, King Crimson, Bob Marley and the Wailers, John Martyn, Mott the Hoople, Robert Palmer, Quintessence, Roxy Music, Sparks, Cat Stevens, Spooky Tooth, Jethro Tull, Traffic, the Average White and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. The studios were also used by non-Island acts such as the Eagles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Dire Straits and the Clash (their London Calling album).
Having released the first Wailers single in 1966, Blackwell resumed his association with the group 6 years later. After Jimmy Cliff covered Cat Stevens’s ‘Wild World’, in the first rock/reggae crossover at the end of the 60s, Cliff left Island in the wake of ‘The Harder They Come’, and Bob Marley reappeared – from Neasden – after playing with Johnny Nash and being busted for grass imports. In 1973 Blackwell perfected the rock-reggae crossover on Bob Marley and the Wailers’ ‘Catch A Fire’ album, featuring ‘Concrete Jungle’ and ‘Stir It Up’, and the first Wailers UK tour was organised on Basing Street. Blackwell’s introduction to reggae came from being rescued from a reef by a group of Rastas in 1958; then the Wailers rescued him from prog rock. In the 60s he merged with Lee Gopthal as Trojan Records, which was based at the Saga Centre on Kensal Road, and set up the Blue Beat distribution network. The Indian-West Indian Windrush passenger Lee Gopthal built up his Musicland/Muzik City reggae record shop chain from his original Portobello market stall.
After Bob Marley was shot in the run up to the December ’76 ‘Smile Jamaica’ concert, the Wailers went into Babylondon exile to record their chart breakthrough album ‘Exodus’, on Basing Street.
In 1970 two famous albums were recorded at the studios at the same time: Led Zeppelin's Led Zeppelin IV and Jethro Tull's Aqualung. Similarly, Bob Marley and the Wailers and the Rolling Stones were in the studios at the same time at one point in 1973. Marley also lived for a short while in the apartment block of the Blue block of SARM studios for a year, which now is a writing space.
These days, the studios are owned by SPZ Group. The complex also contains the offices of SPZ owned record labels ZTT Records and Stiff Records and publishing companies Perfect Songs and Unforgettable. The studios are still very much in use - in 2007 Madonna recorded her album Hard Candy here.
St Luke’s Mews
St Luke’s Mews, which runs across All Saints Road, has hosted residences of Lemmy of Motörhead, Screaming Lord Sutch, Chet Baker, Joe Cocker, Joan Armatrading, Carol Grimes, Richie Havens and Neil Hubbard of Roxy Music. Paula Yates (TV presenter, ex of Bob Geldof, ex of Michael Hutchence of INXS) died of drugs misadventure here in 2000 - on the 30th anniversary of the drugs related death of Jimi Hendrix on Lansdowne Crescent.
225 Portobello Rd – Warwick (Castle)
This was formerly the Warwick Castle – the most notorious market watering hole from the swinging 60s to gangsta rap.Most local pubs have some Clash connection but, in this case, it’s not entirely positive – Joe Strummer cited the Warwick/Castle as his least favorite after being barred in the 90s. However, before he was barred, the Clash were regulars as were Transvision Vamp, World Domination Enterprises, Aswad, Raincoats, Skids, Rip Rig and Panic, Pogues, PIL and Members. A review in The Standard nominated Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) as a ‘pivotal customer’ and Jason Donovan, Matt Dillon and Harry Dean Stanton as regulars – dubious claims though they did all appear.
There was even a Live At The Warwick album, featuring the landlord Seamus Costello calling last orders, ambient pub noises, and the Clash roadie-poet Jock Scot reciting his ‘Ode to the Warwick’; in which:
‘Lords and bores rub shoulders with the pride of London’s building sites.’
The Warwick featured in such films as Portobello Pirate TV by JB of the Portobello Film Festival, and Aki Kaurismaki’s I Hired A Contract Killer. The Notting Hill pub in William Gibson’s cyber-punk novel Mona Lisa Overdrive has to be modelled on the Warwick.
The pub also has political connections - the Warwick stalwart John Duignan stood as the Class War candidate in the 1988 bi-election, on a ‘Stop the yuppie invasion’ ticket.
Perhaps the attraction of the Warwick was due, in part, to the fact that it was the Rough Trade pub – that is, the record shop local and literally. One of the spinoffs of this association was The Roughler – a publication that started life as the programme of the Rough Trade cricket team (the Old Roughians) but evolved into a Warwick fanzine cum Indie version of the Tatler.
Today, while the magazine no longer exists, you can find RoughlerTV on You Tube:
RoughlerTV is descended from Roughler Magazine, a boho pubzine which chronicled Portobello Life in the 80s. RoughlerTV launched with a daily webcast from Portobello Film Festival, based in our own temporary Roughler Gallery.
Looking back, the editor Welsh Ray Roughler-Jones (Alexei Sayle’s mate in the ‘Strike’ Comic Strip) says:
“We became disillusioned with the Warwick after 10 great years when we could do everything we wanted… When people used to live there more than hang out there... They saw through us in the end, they thought it was a boring old Paddy pub and they didn’t realise what was going on in there. Then they realised there were women in there, rock stars, actors and models getting in there.”
The roll call included Neneh Cherry, Andrea Oliver, Anna Chancellor from ‘Four Weddings’, Gina Birch of the Raincoats, Margi Clarke in ‘Contract Killer’, Ronna Ricardo from the Profumo affair, Wendy James of Transvision Vamp, Jerry Hall and Jade Jagger. Girlpower in pubs had been born.
In the late 80s it was Neneh Cherry who was the most significant regular and, indeed, she seemed to encapsulate all the requisite multicultural Grove style elements. Neneh first appeared as the 5th member of the Slits, then fronted Rip Rig & Panic with Andrea Oliver, and Float Up CP. As defined in Time Out: ‘She slips in and out of Portobello Road banter, New York street talk and fluent Swedish... She’s on nickname terms with the Face/Grove posse, and formulated the single from the Face ‘Buffalo’ fashion identity kit.’
Even at that time, The Warwick was the one remaining example of authentic pub squalor on Portobello. In the mid-90s, when the Warwick corner was the scene of a yardie driveby contact killing, a Roughler ad had it
still kicking aginst the grain, still a real pub, specialising in traditional ales and beers, cryptic crosswords, and extremely weird dancing. Mingle with the intelligentsia, spot the loonies, witness for yourself the only bar in Portobello Road with permanent and irreparable full moon syndrome.
At the end of the 80s, the most significant Warwick regular was Wendy James of Transvision Vamp. At the end of the 80s, she held court in the Warwick Castle with their second album ‘Velveteen’ at number 1 and Wendy herself the first Portobello pop pin-up since Marc Bolan. It can be argued that Transvision Vamp were the most successful local band, with top ten hits and million selling albums, but they fared less well than anyone in the press.
Transvision Vamp was originally a DIY cyber-punk sci-fi soundtrack tape, by Wendy James and Nick Christian Sayer, hawked along Portobello in the mid 80s.
On the Wendy website she describes Ladbroke Grove as a ‘spiritual powerpoint’, with an ‘accommodating dole office’, and recalls initially recruiting the bassist and drummer, Dave Parsons and Tex Axile, to spray Transvision Vamp graffiti around the area.
Wendy was dubbed the ‘Imelda Marcos of Portobello Road’, in a Standard article on Mario’s cobblers on Talbot Road.
Their ‘W11 Blues’ track begins with Wendy ‘walking down the line, heading for the Grove.’ After echoing the Clash and Hawkwind in encounters with police and thieves, she ‘strode on down the line to Grove… left out of All Saints across Portobello Road, underneath the Westway and into Ladbroke Grove, up 2 flights of stairs into a darkened hall.’
In the late 90s, the front door of the Transvision Vamp drummer’s (Tex Axile) former Westbourne Park Road abode, opposite the Warwick, took the starring role in Notting Hill the movie. Meanwhile the bassist became bigger than Oasis in the States as part of Bush (the Brit grunge group named after Shepherd’s Bush).
179 Portobello Rd - Duke of Wellington
The Duke of Wellington, on the corner of Elgin Crescent, was known as Finch’s - the Portobello flagship of the Finch’s bar chain and the rock pub from Hawkwind to Transvision Vamp.The journalist Ed Vulliamy has recalled the ‘lure of the Portobello Road’ in the late 60s with ‘all those ‘Sergeant Pepper’ jackets outside Finch’s.’ In the first Alternative London guidebook the Portobello Finch’s is down as ‘one of the liveliest pubs – rough enough to keep out Americans. You can play, sing or anything else provided you don’t need room to move.’
In the early 70s, when it was another busking venue of Dave Brock of Hawkwind, Finch’s was described in the underground paper Frendz as ‘where your cooler, more nervous, refined or trendy dealer goes to relax over a jar or two of plump barmaid.’ In Ed Vulliamy’s local teenage memoir, ‘soon it was legal to buy a beer in Finch’s, but not some of the other substances available there.’
After the glam-punk rock New York Dolls played London in 1973, Nick Kent, then of the NME, recalled the guitarist Sylvain Sylvain ‘in Finch’s back in good old Ladbroke Grove dealing dope.’
Over the rock’n’roll years, Keith Moon, Michael Moorcock, Julie Christie, Germaine Greer, Mick Farren, John Bindon from Performance, the Windsor chapter Hells Angels, Sex Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits were often seen here.
Though best known for his writing, Michael Moorcock was a member of Hawkwind and had his own group Deep Fix. In the 70s he lived across the road from Finch’s on Colville Terrace and included the pub in his Hendrix ghost story A Dead Singer – in which the roadie Shakey Mo had spent too long in Finch’s, suffering from severe acid rock withdrawal symptoms, and become Hendrix’s tour manager on the astral plane. He also included the pub in his ‘King of the City’ pub drugs guide:
‘Speed in the Alex. Dope in the Blenheim (on the site of E&O). Junk in Finch’s. They kept tarting up Finch’s and Henekey’s and we kept tarting them down again. As my friend DikMik (Hawkwind’s oscillator operator) put it late one evening; you could take the needles out of the toilets but you couldn’t take the toilets out of the needles.’
Moorcock wasn’t alone in his opinion - in the mid 70s it was described as the most evil pub in England in a tabloid shock-horror drugs expose.
In the early 80s the Finch’s local band was the Lords of the New Church; the former punk supergroup featuring Brian James of the Damned, Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys, and Dave Treganna of Sham 69. They named themselves after the Kensington New Church on Pembridge Villas.
In the early 1980s, Mick Jones of the Clash lived in Colville Gardens, just off Colville Terrace.
In the early 90s, the basement of the Cage heavy metal ephemera shop next door (now the Duke of Wellington toilets) was squatted for a series of speed metal gigs.
13 minutes walking, 3 sites to visit then pub
171 Portobello Rd – Portobello Star
At the other end of the Admiral Vernon antiques market, the Portobello Star is an old mod hangout-turned-rockers’ retreat, cited by the pub rock hero Joe Strummer as his favourite local. The bar has also been propped up by the rest of the Clash, Damon Albarn of Blur, Keith Allen, Chris Evans and Paul Gascoigne, Jamie Theakston, Sara Cox, and Mike Skinner aka The Streets.Over the road was a busking pitch of Dave Brock of Hawkwind. Also over the road, at 142 (now the Gong shop), was the location used for the ‘Travel Bookshop’ in the Notting Hill film.
22 Lansdowne Road
Lansdowne Road features in most expensive street in London lists (average price of >£10mil) but on 18th September 1970, Jimi Hendrix died of a drug overdose here in the Samarkand Hotel. He was only 27.
On that night Jimi was with his girlfriend at her basement flat in Lansdowne Crescent at the Samarkand. Monika Danneman woke up to find Hendrix unconscious. He was rushed to hospital but never recovered. The forensic examiner concluded that he had choked on his own vomit after having taken at least 9 or 10 of her barbiturates chased down with alcohol.
22 Stanley Gardens
The glam rock folk who lived on the hill were to be found in the Portobello Hotel at 22 Stanley Gardens. Kensington’s answer to New York’s Chelsea Hotel opened in 1969, and was mostly renowned for the mid 70s stay of the glam shock-rocker, Alice Cooper, and his stage-prop boa constrictor snake which he kept in the bath of room 13. Robbie Williams subsequently stayed in the room and tried to buy the bed. During a stay at the time of his split up with Nicole Appleton of All Saints (she went on to date Liam Gallagher of Oasis), Robbie complained of fan vigils outside.The hotel is also remembered for the basement bar, which acted as the after-hours office of the underground paper Frendz and Virgin Records. The bar was also a favoured haunt of Siouxsie and the Banshees and Marc Almond (Soft Cell – you know, Tainted Love).
Carly Simon appeared in front of the Portobello on the cover of her 1971 album ‘Anticipation’ (unfortunately not including ‘You’re So Vain’, with Mick Jagger backing vocals).
In 1980, when U2 finally got the recording contract they wanted with Island records, the deal was finalised here. Today, it is Bono’s favored hotel in London. And Van Morrison invariably stays here when visiting London. Indeed Van Morrison wrote an album here while staying as a long term resident.
Tina Turner used to stay here but bought a house next door in the 80s. More recent guests include The White Stripes, Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Sinead O’Connor, Sheryl Crow, Lisa I’Anson and the Spice Girls.
The hotel has also attracted film producers – both Tim Burton and Francis Ford Coppola have been long standing residents. (Tim Burton apparently caused flooding to his floor from his bath - he was not alone at the time.) Other movie celebs to stay here include Raquel Welch.
Room 13 isn’t the only famous room in the hotel. Room 16 hosted Kate Moss and Johnny Depp who holed up there for days and apparently filled their bath with Champagne.
As well as normal rooms, there are also some microscopic “cabins” on the top floor. The Manager says:
"They have their uses. The scene in Alien when the creature explodes from John Hurt's stomach was written in one of them, because the screenwriter felt so desperate to break out himself."
Mick Jones from the Clash worked here as a night porter. After they became successful, another Clash member - Topper" Headon – often stayed to celebrate occasions.
Ahead, the tower of St Peter’s Church on Kensington Park Road appears in Spiceworld the Movie and Notting Hill the movie. The Fairport Convention recorded ‘The Lord Is In This Place’ in the church.
277-81 Westbourne Grove The Earl of Lonsdale formerly Henekey’s
The Earl of Lonsdale, at 277-81 Westbourne Grove, was previously the swinging 60s pub, Henekey’s. In the 60s the clientele included beatnik writers, kitchen-sink playwrights, the pop artist Peter Blake and actor Julie Christie.The pub continued rocking through the 70s in spite of some bad reviews. In 1966, The Grove newsletter contained a drawing of a ‘Heneky’s’ sign with a ‘Sorry No Coloured’ notice; in the early 70s, the pub received a similarly bad review from the Gay Liberation Front in Frendz. Meanwhile Mick Farren (Deviants etc) described it as ‘the prime freak pub of the time’. As such it began sttracting tourist and police attention, leading up to what was reported as ‘the biggest drugs bust in history.’
Like a few other London hostelries, the pub can claim to be the birthplace of punk rock.
Mick Jones first appeared at Henkey’s with his ‘decadent rock’ (rather than just glam) group, the Delinquents – who looked not dissimilar to the Darkness and described themselves as ‘punky’ in 1974. When they broke up, Mick Jones formed an alliance with the Hollywood Brats, London’s existing answer to the New York Dolls, after meeting the guitarist Brady at the Portobello market. British punk rock began, on Portobello Road in 1975, when this practise group chose ‘London SS’ as their working title.
According to one explanation, ‘London SS’ was a word play on life in London on Social Security, the name was a more successful attempt to out outrage the New York Dolls, with camp Nazi shock-horror tactics. Although original punk accessories were purchased from the notorious military ephemera stall in the antiques market, it was in the heavy rock tradition of Brian Jones, Keith Moon and Lemmy, to scare the squares, not as a political statement.
Members of the London SS went on to form the Clash, Damned and Generation X.
In the mid 70s, Henekey’s became the Virgin local.
In the 1976 punk summer of hate Sid Vicious and Viv Albertine (later of the Slits) formed the shortlived punk supergroup the Flowers of Romance during a Henekey’s session.
Through the 80s, the Lonsdale retained a heavy pub rock afterglow. In the 90s, Sarah Cracknell of St Etienne described the pub as the best place in London to hide.
In early 1967, Jimi Hendrix was staying up the road at 167 Westbourne Grove, when the property was painted purple. According to rock legend, on his return from a UFO club trip one morning, the sight of the house inspired his second single – Purple Haze.
95 Portobello Rd - Princess Alexandra pub (now Portobello Gold)
This was originally a locals’ local, founded as a rock venue by Mick Farren (The Deviants etc), Boss Goodman (Deviants, Pink Fairies) , Lemmy (Hawkwind, Motorhead) and Steve Peregrin Took (Tyrannosaurus Rex, Pink Fairies, Shagrat etc) Mick Farren recalls:The bulls
t level in Henneky's, by about 1972 or so, caused Edward Barker and Roger Hutchinson to walk diagonally across the street and check out a pub that no one used except a few dodgy used car dealers. But there was a pool table. It was called the Princes Alexandra -- The Alex. Boss, Lemmy, George Butler and I followed. Then Crazy Charlie and Hells Angels also adopted it. Bit by bit we made it our own and it stayed that way until it got too well known and full of Swedish Hawkwind fans hoping to spot Lemmy or Nic Turner. Ultimately it would be bought out, tarted up and become The GoldIn its heyday the pub was renowned as the Alex – the hells angels, National Front and speed dealers’ pub.
The pub was particularly identified with Lemmy who, when off the road, could be found on the fruit machine of the pub. In the early 70s, notables here included Hawkwind, the Pink Fairies, Sex Pistols, Clash, Damned, Ramones and Stray Cats.
In 1966, the Beachboys were filmed visiting the market in the Peter Whitehead short film, Beachboys in London. Dennis Wilson and Al Jardine first appeared in an antique musical instrument shop. This inevitably resulted in a trombone duel, outside the Princess Alexandra.
In 1977 the pub acquired the somewhat less hip distinction of being in Status Quo’s video for ‘Rockin’ All Over the World’, when they went by, pretending to play on the back of a truck.
In 2000 Dave ‘Boss’ Goodman, the Deviants/Fairies tour manager and underground food correspondent, was back in the Gold working as the chef when, following in the footsteps of Beachboys, Ramones and Stray Cats, the notorious American saxophonist Bill Clinton made a guest appearance on stage while Hilary and Chelsea did the market.
The singer Seal & the actor Daniel Craig have worked here.
86 Portobello Rd – Alice’s
Alice’s antiques shop at 86 Portobello Road, on the corner of the Denbigh Close mews, sold the Edwardian police capes modelled by the Beatles in the early 60s. Then the pop artist Peter Blake found inspiration and paraphernalia for the sleeve of their 1967 album, ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, in the antiques market Victoriana.In the mid 70s, a party thrown by the hippy socialite Sally Sparkle at number 64 turned into a heavy rock jamming session, featuring Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. In due course, this caused what has to be the hippest local noise complaint of them all, followed by the least heavy Portobello police incident, in which the rock stars were politely ushered to their limos.
At the end of the 20th century, Madonna’s bid for a property at the southern end of Portobello Rd (number 7) behind the Sun in Splendour pub was gazumped.
SO ENDETH THE TOUR, PLEASE TIP YOUR GUIDE.
Turn7 said:
Plan to meet up with an Italian couple that we became friends with over covid next Saturday.
They are going to Portobello market in the morning, so looking for a decent pub/bar that we can hear ourselves talk and just be comfortable in.....
Wow fThey are going to Portobello market in the morning, so looking for a decent pub/bar that we can hear ourselves talk and just be comfortable in.....
kin Bloody lucky spaghetti-eater... :Cool:
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