Kmflett's Blog

What was Marlers Bar, Colney Hatch Lane, Muswell Hill, N10

Tim Martin at 71. Remembering the first ‘Wetherspoons’, Muswell Hill, 1979

Sir Tim Martin is 71 on 28^th April. His name and the pub chain he founded, Wetherspoons, divides opinion, often strongly. His pro-Brexit views rankle as do, for me, the failure of his 800 strong pub chain to recognise a trade union. Nigel Farage often seems to be pictured in Spoons but this is just a ‘man of the people’ image he tries to promote. Farage may be pictured with a pint of beer but he is a fine wines man

Some years back I was intrigued by a tweet from beer bloggers and writers par excellence Boak and Bailey about the original Wetherspoons bar, known as Marlers, which was in Colney Hatch Lane, Muswell Hill N10.

They suggested, based on comments in the London Drinker, that it was a pub frequented by the trendy and charged robust prices. There is indeed a letter complaining about the prices, probably the first of many complaints about Spoons, in the CAMRA magazine London Drinker. Notable however because CAMRA has been a great supporter as Spoons is one place where you will reliably find cask ale.

My intrigue-ment was based on the fact that I used to drink in Marlers bar with friends and with my late father at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s. It was about a mile from my parent’s house which was in the Alexandra Park area of Muswell Hill.

How I heard about Marlers I can’t recall but probably via CAMRA (this was well before social media and mobiles).

As a research historian I’m wary of basing things on memory which is often a bit unreliable and prefer to check against printed sources.

The problem here is that as a source the interwebs are just as unreliable as memory.

My memory suggests that Marlers was a joint venture between Andrew Marler and Tim Martin. The officially approved version indicates that Marler was the original owner and then sold to Martin. That did not preclude Martin from having an interest previously of course but it is Marler I remember behind the bar.

What happened to Marler is mildly obscure though his record of owning the Worlds End in Camden Town and then a pub in Shepherds Bush is well known.

The interwebs indicate that in 2012 he was the owner of two pubs in the St Albans area, one of which, the Cross Keys, had been sold to him by Wetherspoons.

What of the beer in Marlers? My memory suggests that it was from regional brewers like Wadworths, Greene King and Ruddles that were then hardly available in London. CAMRA sources from the time concur. I thought I also recalled Sam Smiths but I might well be wrong..

A friend who I drank with in Marlers at the time, Mark Baker, recalls ‘it was quite exotic stuff for that part of the world at that time (i.e. it wasn’t Ind Coope or Courage!)’

It was certainly the case that Marlers was a shop conversion (more or less unheard of the time). It appears to have been a bookies. Before that the interweb suggests it was a private drinking club for footballers, One source says Spurs, another Arsenal. We can be sure it was not both but the pub is on the Arsenal side of Haringey so it was quite probably them.

The pub has long since ceased to be a Spoons anyway but the story has a, for most, happy ending.

Wetherspoons have returned to Muswell Hill, up the hill, just at the top of the hill itself. The Mossy Well is rather a handsome pub and were you in the area you could do worse than stop by. Possibly best not to mention the name Marler though.

I revisited this post following a social media discussion on what the first Wetherspoons pub to feature in the Good Beer Guide was. Of course in the late 1970s the pub was not badged as a Spoons. I’m fairly sure it eventually was but when that happened I’m not sure(of course!).

Certainly Wetherspoons started out in Haringey and Tim Martin (who was a lawyer) is on record as saying that a key reason was because there were no decent pubs where he then lived in Wood Green.

Mr Martin is not always right but on this he is absolutely correct. Unexciting as the range of beer in Marlers bar in the late 1970s might seem to us now, the best part of 50 years ago it would have been very easily the best real ale and hence the best beer range in Haringey as keg meant Twitbreads and Grotnys. Other alternatives included Courage Best (John Baird Muswell Hill) Ind Coope Burton bitter (Alexandra, St James Lane N10) and Bass and Charrington IPA (Railway Crouch End).

Tim Martin told Desert Island Discs (3rd December 2017) about the early days of Marlers Bar in Muswell Hill & about the expansion of  Wetherspoons in North London:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05pnxh7?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_radio_4&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=radio_and_music

Suffice to say in conclusion that whatever Martin came to think about the EU, Muswell Hill where he started is a very strongly Remain sort of place