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Battersea pub history, it just keeps coming

I run the pub history site which covers All of London and its suburban bits, i.e. the parts of London which were previously in the home counties, and now parts of London, and also were at times also listed as part of London. Confused?

Well, I am confused most of the time as to where I am researching, as there is very rarely a clear strand between random records of census, trade directories etc.

I have spent a lot of time researching this area, as have many others who have supplied records along the way and over the years. As I also cover most of the rest of the United Kingdom in some shape, I tend not to spend a lot of time in just one area, but recently I thought I would try and finish off Battersea pub history! I am always very confident in that a few more days will do this, even though I have been doing the same for the past 18 years – hey ho.

Now, I believe, I am getting close. And I keep finding new pubs which could not have existed for more than a few years, and then I find a pub named in 1853 and next in 1881, what’s going on.

And then there is the Red House, a pub in the middle of nowhere along the Thames, and opposite Chelsea. I closes about 1853. it is then covered over to remove all existence, a normal tale for many parts of London!

That’s Battersea pub history, covered in three sections, with most in the north west section, some in the east, and a bit in the southwest

Enough for now.

Kevan

Checkatrade.com feedback

I thought I would write a post which has nothing to do with pubs and history, just life.

I use the company checkatrade.com a lot, well I used to. I have had a number of jobs at home completed by tradesmen from companies who advertise on this site.

Most of my feedback has been very positive.

When you do get a cowboy, the feedback does not seem to get published. A shitty site, methinks – a bit like Boris and all of his promises.

It appears that a number of the traders I have used, and have contacted checkatrade.com as to the fact they were not supplying the services they should, are continuing to trade, but my comments about these sites were never published.

A bit sad that this sort of crap still goes on. Avoid checkatrade.com, its an advertising site, not a real site.

Kevan

The new pub history and pub wiki site

Well, it has finally happened. I have moved my pubs history site for the last time, for the time being, to the pubwiki.co.uk site.

I did make this move recently, then rescinded it, but have now made the move for good. I am also working through each London pub history page and making sure that firstly it has an postcode of some description, and latterly, as I work through Holborn, that I actually know where this pub was!

That’s it really. The pub history site, well a pub wiki site, now continues on with some idea of where it is heading.

Kevan

Random pub history blog post

I have actually cancelled this blog and the relevant web site url, but as it is still working, why not post a bit of stuff about the many changes on the pub history sites.

I have been suffering with reduced revenue from advertising to cover the costs of running this site, I spend about £60 a month on a server (a vps server). I also spend my entire waking life updating the same at zero £ per hour, and have been doing this for the past 20 years!

Why do I do this then? Because I enjoy doing it!

Am I good at researching pub history, and the older pubs, YES I am. Is it relevant today, probably not in most cases, but it is a study on early life in London, particularly in Victorian times and earlier. My later records often phase out after about 1937 – 1944.

I did spend the day reading an SEO report on all of the google search changes that are happening these days, and that older sites like mine are penalised as they try and cover too much. They are thin sites, with little detail on many pages, whereas you are better to build fat sites (like a blog).

Age of a site has little preference over a brand new site.

So, what I have done today, and this is not yet complete, is to move anything not related to London and the immediate home counties to another of my sites. This has halved the number of pages on the pubshistory site, but they are tending to be the better pages.

There is still much more room for improvement, and this will continue over the coming days, weeks and months, and years – hopefully.

Kevan – here is to a long life.

Battersea, Clapham & London suburban areas

I continue my pub history updates for Battersea, which have been monumental to say the least. All of the Battersea 1871 census added, and earlier records too. But, I am still missing some of the 1851 pubs which existed.

I thought I would try out some of the areas nearby to see if I could fill these gaps, and hence Clapham pub history updates.

I am very lacking in this area, even if I have been researching the entirety for many years. I do not ever get the time to research any areas properly, but my sites are still significant, and probably better than you will find anywhere for early research!

That’s it really, for now. I am still working through the last parts of Clapham in 1871, then onto another locality.

As a sideline issue, I broke a rib, I think, about 10 days ago, and this is slowly mending. It is painful, but apart from the problems with breathing, and the pain levels, this is slowly getting better.

The reason I mention this, is my trips to London have stalled for a few days. I made it to the British Library at Kings Cross, and will be visiting again fairly soon, and the same goes for the London Metropolitan Archive. I now have readers cards for both.

Lots more to come as usual.

Kevan

Licensed Victuallers Association

The title says it all. The Licensed Victuallers Association was formed as a form of insurance against hardship for the lucky few, well actually, for the not so lucky.

The Society of Licensed Victuallers began in 1793 as a friendly society for the mutual benefit of publicans, and the relief of members of the licensed victualling trade and their families. It was incorporated by royal charter in 1836. A daily newspaper, the Morning Advertiser, was soon established to promote its interests. In 1802 the Society set up a school in Kennington Lane for boys and girls of deceased or impoverished fellow traders.

Brilliant.

I have spent the day adding links to the various years of records which I currently have transcribed on my site, the pub history wiki. It all adds to the history of a Victorian pub, as many of these records are in the 1860s, although I also have records from the 1830s.

The useful detail is when I confirm a change of address for a public house, and thus making it a little more interesting. One of the better examples is in St George Hanover square – and the Grosvenor Arms.

This is just one of many examples.

pub history in Victorian London

I guess I need to clarify what I know, and what is insignificant to my knowledge.

I do know lots of pubs are continually closing, and others are opening, e.g. Wetherspoons and the like.

I also know I don’t really have a lot of knowledge about pub history since 1944, which is quite a long time ago. For most people, this is like the dark ages!

Now it’s said, my sites are largely aimed at pubs that have existed since, or during the Victorian era, maybe a little later.

So, the question is who really cares about this era of pub history? Well, simple answer, I do. That’s it. Early Victorian pubs may have little interest to most people, but it is one of my main interests, especially in London. I can use the early London pubs to traverse an area, explain street name changes, map a pub to a specific London parish, and list licensees and residents at a specific address.

And to make it a slightly bit more interesting, some of these addresses do not get listed in the google search engine unless I list them. What could be better than this.

Advertising on the pub history wiki site

I have moved the pub history site to pub wiki, i.e. pubwiki.co.uk for a number of reasons, including the fact I like the name.

Currently, there are now 58 thousand pages, and probably 10 thousand plus images on the site. Apart from this, the advertising revenues from adsense are still about £1 a day, and I think I can live without this. It helps, but it is also taking the piss! All ads are to now to go.

It’s a bit like the new prime minister being selected by the Tory party, a bit crap! At least with Nigel Farage you know where you stand, ‘they come round here’ attitude.

pub wiki transfer

For what it is worth reporting. I have transferred all of my pub history sites, well both of them, to the new pub wiki site.

The site is largely unchanged although with many updates every day as usual, and it does include the whole of the UK again. There are reasons for making this change, but I will not bore you.

I want to build the accessibility site for London, and regularly take a trip into London at least once or twice a week for this purpose.

I am most interested in taking pictures of steps, stairs, elevators and gaps onto trains. I am obviously getting slightly paranoid about my ability to walk!

A typical trip to London ends up with my climbing between 16 and 38 steps of stairs, depending on my day. I am far from finished, although sometimes I struggle a little! This is the story of accessible travel in London, when will it ever become a reality?

It certainly did not become accessible under the auspices of Boron, London mayor, he just gave away the London Olympic stadium to West Ham with free policing, useless piece of Tory scumbags shite that he was.

Jubilee line stations accessibility – July 2019

I took another trip to London yesterday. I am visiting all of the 600 stations in London, one at a time, and adding some detail to each of these stations on my London travel accessibility site – London19.com ; I am getting there very slowly.

My aim is to make people aware with some very simple pictures of what to expect from any station, whether you are in a wheelchair, struggling with heavy luggage or a pushchair, or just generally very unfit, like myself.

This trip eventually started at Baker street, on the Jubilee line, and heading northwards. I later discovered that all of the stations southbound from here were clearly step free according to the TFL maps – this is probably true.

Baker street was interesting, and not step free, and lots of individual stairs. I chatted to one of the station staff, and asked whether there were any lifts. No, sorry, was the response. That’s OK, no apology necessary.

Next station was St Johns Wood. I have never visited any of these stations before. It was OK for me, just one long escalator. You can change between the north and south bound platforms quite easily. I did not check the step or gap onto the train.

Next station was Swiss Cottage, with a mixture of escalators, and stairs. I did not check each of the entrances, but they appear to vary between about 12 and 28 stairs. There is more detail on the inclusive guides which I link to (not necessarily up to date).

Finchley road Station was the next station on the Jubilee line. All looked OK, until I spotted the stairs, all of them. I did not count them, but apparently there are 28 stairs. My fitbit stair count is rising fast.

West Hampstead Station is next, and the stairs looked worse. In fact just a bit, with 31 stairs.

And then we have Kilburn Station. TFL mark this on their tube map as being step free from the platform to the street. That is OK, it is correct. Although there are stairs, there are lifts too. If they added a raised platform to part of the station, they could call it entirely step free. Stanmore has a similar designation, and I will talk more about this later. A lot more.

Willesden Green is the next station, and again this has 30 stairs. I am starting to get tired by this point. I get on and off at every station, and climb to the top, and march back down again. They are not the most interesting stations I have visited.

Next station is Dollis Hill, and more stairs, only 25 this time. Then there is a platform crossing below the train lines, etc..

The we arrive at Neasden, only 25 stairs, plus another 8 stairs a bit further on. I don’t spend much time outside the station, as ever. More stations to see.

Next station is the wonderful Wembley Park, an ultra-modern station with lifts. Rated step free, although I wonder how the lifts cope when the station is really busy.

Followed by Kingsbury, again a step free station. Perhaps this is a better way of visiting the area in peak times. I will leave you to check this out.

Sadly, Queensberry lets the side down again. This time with 29 steps followed up by a further 8 steps.

Nearly done, we arrive at Canons park, only 43 steps at this station! How do the local people cope with this? That is a lot of stairs in one flight.

Its OK, we are nearing Stanmore. Stanmore is designated a step free station from platform to street level. If it is anything like Kilburn, it will be a doddle.

I am a bit tired of climbing stairs today, so I will enjoy this nice slope to the street level to visit the station entrance.

Hang on, the first section of slope arrives at some steps upwards, going up towards the station, whilst the ramp then continues via some zig zag sections of metal ramp down to a car park. The car park is at the bottom of the hill, whilst the station is at the top of the hill. Thinking about this is reverse order, there is clearly step free access from the car park to the station, if you have the energy or drive to make your way up this slope. I took the stairs after the first section of slop, and arrived at the station entrance. Looking back down into the station, there were 48 stairs down to the platform!

And TFL have the cheek to pass this off as a step free station on their tube maps. It is technically correct, but an insult to the general public!!!! Look at the pictures, and it puts this all into perspective. This is the real reason I am building this site, to show what morons make up the simple set of symbols, which makes this station OK. It is rubbish like many of the nearby stations, and you are better off getting a bus.

Finally, I decided to head in the opposite direction, back to Baker street, and the next station onwards was Bond street. Apparently all stations from Bond street all the way to Stratford are incredibly step free. I know this is the case, and I have visited many of these previously.

So, to Bond street and beyond, here we come. Lets see how many more stations we can visit today.

Arriving at Bond street, after the platform had largely cleared, I spotted a rather excellent raised platform at one section. Unfortunately, the photograph was taken using flash. I can appreciate that flash may affect fire alarms, but I was told not to use it as it was like a gun going off – rubbish, its a camera flash. I took a few more pictures of the station, and came home.

TFL, why can you not do this, and describe your stations properly, it just needs one of your staff to wander round with a camera, and tell the true, and honest, story. Many are only standing around with too little to do.

I forgot to mention, one of the stations, had a sign up explaining that you could ask staff for a ramp to get on and off trains. I chatted briefly to a guard on the platform, and asked whether they could then bypass the stairs to exit the station. He just looked at me and shrugged. It’s not his problem.

I would love to get feedback, and additional information on any of the station I have yet to visit. I have lots of time, but this is still not enough to visit all 600 stations in a timely manner.

Kevan