The original Muswell Hill Marlers Bar
With Wetherspoons continuing to put pubs up for sale (roughly around 5% of its 800+ pubs) its interesting to look at the first ten Wetherspoons and what has happened to them 40 or so years on.
Five years ago, just before COVID, the February/March 2020 issue of CAMRA’s London Drinker magazine carried details of a tour by a group of hardcore Wetherspoons fans of what they judged to be the first ever 10 Wetherspoons pubs opened.
The tour before Xmas 2019 was designed to mark the 40th anniversary of the first Wetherspoons, Marlers Bar in Muswell Hill.
All of course are in north-east London, once the limits of Tim Martin’s pubs horizon
Only one now, the Rochester Castle in Stoke Newington, remains open as a Spoons
I’m not sure the list is really accurate but full marks for trying. The stated aim was to visit the locations of the first 10 actual Wetherspoons pubs when Tim Martin had split business wise from Andrew Marler. Working it out as anyone, including the BBC who contact me about this from time to time, who tries soon grasps, is fiendishly difficult.
I’ve drunk in all of them over the decades except what is now the Despard. I would have thought the Tollgate in Turnpike Lane (still open but no longer a Spoons ) and the Elbow Room in Tottenham (still open not a Spoons) might well qualify as amongst the earliest.
Further having spent many evenings drinking in Dicks Bar (it was opposite what was Hornsey police station) in Tottenham Lane N8 over the years I’m not so sure it was styled as a Spoons. Still memory is not a great way of remembering things.
Lord Moon of the Mall* (now reverted to McMullens)
Furlongs (Marlers, Colney Hatch Lane)
Dicks Bar Crouch End (shop)
Old Suffolk Punch Green Lanes (betting shop)
Mortimer Arms, Harringay (Old Ale Emporium)
Marlers Bar, Stoke Newington (Coach & Horses)
Tanners Hall, Stoke Newington (Rochester Castle)
JJ Moons, Upper Holloway (Landseer Arms)
White Lion of Mortimer Stroud Green (White Lion)
Marlers Bar, Crouch Hill (The Robin)
Elbow Room Crouch End (Small Beer)
Marlers Bar, Archway (Charlotte Despard)
Coronet*, Holloway Rd (shut by Spoons, now reopened)
*start and end point not on the original list
A reminder that before he got a Knighthood from a Tory Government Tim Martin did try to do something different in the pub trade- no music,all day food and reliable cask ale. He still does but the thrill is long gone
I used to drink in the Rochester Castle before it became a Spoons. I was working in North Mid A and E early 80s and got a lift to it in a London Ambulance.