G’day all!
There is a pub called “The Old Star” at 64 Broadway, Westminster SW1. Just opposite St James’ Park tube station, and next door to what used to be the secret service offices. (Though the Service used the nearby and much posher St Ermine’s Hotel for meetings, putting up guests, and so on.)
Can anybody familiar with London tell me what it is likely to have been like in 1962–63? What opening hours, services, and clientele out one to expect of a pub in Westminster in the early Sixties?
One part I can answer immediately: the Licensing Act 1921 applies to all pubs in the UK (Scotland will diverge in 1976, England and Wales in 1988). Pubs in urban areas can open between 1130-1500, and 1830-2300. On Sundays, 1200-1500 and 1800-2200 but a maximum of five hours total.
Most pubs are open all permitted hours, but if there isn’t much traffic on a Sunday (e.g. in the City of London) some of them won’t bother with that.
I had a quick look at the oldest planning documents I could find are from 1989.
I had a skim of the London Metropolitan Archives. I found LMA/4473/037/159 is a photo of a sign from the Jones-Jones collection (approx 1970-1990).
I think you will want to go to City of Westminster Archives Centre and pull the licensing register that the Courts of Petty Sessions would have generated. Unfortunately I can’t dig into it any further cause their web search keeps failing.
Thanks! That’s more effort than I hoped for.
I was really only hoping for an idea of London customs of the time. Who (in the Sixties) went to a pub in Westminster (an administrative and commercial distract with few residences) at lunchtime or in the evening on a work day? And what did they buy and do there? Were they getting lunch, or just an anaesthetic to get them through the afternoon at their desk?
{In Australia in the Sixties pubs in the city (“CBD”, we call it now) didn’t serve many meals, and the upper floors were taken up by unused bedrooms there to satisfy a requirement of the licensing laws. But I am aware that arrangements were different in Blighty, even then.}
Food is unusual though you might get a sandwich or similar; it’s not a place you’d go to eat, more a place you’d find yourself hungry and not have to leave to satisfy the urge. There will be some office workers who are happy to sink two or three pints every lunchtime (usually turning up in groups or two or three, almost certainly all men). There will be fewer customers later, some after-work crowd but maybe only one or two people by the end of the evening. A minimum of one person behind the bar, two at lunchtime and after work, one of them probably a competent cellarman. Beer deliveries will be early in the day, probably before opening time.
They may not have use of the upstairs rooms at all, but if they do they might be living accommodation for the landlord.
There may be a distinction between public and saloon bars; I think it unlikely for a pub in town. Main public entrance is round the corner in Queen Anne’s Gate, and at least in the modern day there’s a clear access to the back works (e.g. for beer deliveries) to the left of that. The main bar seems to be in the corner room, and the smaller room (three windows, on Broadway proper, and the left of the two doors gives access to that) is probably just a seating area.
These are the glory days of nitrokeg and there isn’t a whole lot of real ale about. (CAMRA won’t be founded until 1971.) Some common beer brands of the day are Watney’s Red Barrel, and Double Diamond.
Other than the office workers, you might see some older residents with not much else to do (especially if the weather is cold; insulation in buildings is a sign of foreign weakness or something). Depending on the character of the area you might get a prostitute trying her luck, but the staff will throw her out as soon as they realise what she’s up to.