Last call for many historic British pubs
Changing tastes, development pressure, pandemic habits share blame as hundreds close in year
When the Crown and Anchor pub in Llanidloes, Wales, was built, there was a different Charles on the throne, America was a British colony and France still had a king.
While time changed all around it, the Crown and Anchor has stayed much the same since the 17th century. But that long spell of history ended abruptly in May, when a coronavirus hangover, rising prices and high energy costs meant landlord John Fitzpatrick was forced to close.
The final straw was changing customer habits: Locals had stopped coming out for drinks. While his pub was stalling, Fitzpatrick noticed a nearby spot was booming: The beer shop next door had sales that “were up year on year,” he says. “Drinking habits and going out changed in lockdown — people got used to staying in.”
The number of pubs has dropped by a quarter since 2000, from 60,800 to 45,800 in 2022, according to numbers from the British Beer and Pub Association.
And things are only getting more challenging for the battered establishments. More than 560 pubs closed in 2022 — more than in either 2020 or 2021, the height of the pandemic, according to the BBPA. Its figures show pubs have been hit by the energy crisis, with the average energy bill rising to $23,300 a year — a number that is often higher in older pubs with traditional fittings like single-paned windows.
“They’ve had a hard four to five years where they’ve had to rely on reserves and savings just to survive and keep the doors open,” says Tom Stainer, chief executive of the Campaign for Real Ale, known as CAMRA.
Among the pubs that have closed are several of the country’s most historic: The Air Balloon in Gloucestershire, open since at least the 1780s, closed last year; the 200-yearold Black Horse in Coventry was demolished in January. And in early August, the 18th century Crooked House near Birmingham was demolished after a suspicious fire.
With each time-honored spot that’s shuttered, another little piece of British history is lost, warns Paul Ainsworth, chair of the pub heritage group within CAMRA. “They’re period pieces, they should be a reminder of how places were at that time,” he says. “We consider them part of the nation’s heritage.”
Describing the function of a pub to a nonBrit is difficult. It has beer, but isn’t a bar; it serves food, but isn’t a restaurant; it hosts guests overnight, but isn’t a hotel. Some have live music, many have games, others brew their own beer. You can drink there all night and bring your children and dogs, too. If their role can be summarized at all, it’s as a community center — the “third place” people go to outside of work and home.
“I grew up on a farm on the countryside, and the pub was like the village living room,” says Ben Dewfield-Oakley, conservation officer at Save Britain’s Heritage.
They also distinctly mark periods in British history, says CAMRA’s Ainsworth. High Victorian pubs built with wealth from new industry are ornate in style: The Philharmonic in Liverpool has mosaic floors, marble urinals and wood-paneled walls. The art deco pubs built in the 1930s had more spacious rooms and gardens to appeal to families and discourage boorish behavior. The most modern recognized style is the estate pub, with simple interiors built for housing estates in the austere postwar era.
Taxes have also made a trip to the pub pricier than drinking and eating at home. Food from the supermarket isn’t subject to VAT, while meals at the pub come with 20% added tax — a disparity that Wetherspoon has said allows them to subsidize beer to keep it lower in price. Twice as much alcohol is now bought in shops and supermarkets than in pubs, clubs and restaurants, according to the BBPA.
Add to that younger people are less inclined to reach for a pint, and nesting-athome habits, exacerbated by the pandemic, have stuck around.
“When we were younger the pub was where we went,” Stainer notes. Now, “if you’re young on a low income, dreaming of owning a house, then I don’t know if you’ll be able to go and drink two or three pints with your friends.”
The things that make pub buildings appeal to customers also appeal to developers. “One problem with historic pubs is they tend to occupy attractive buildings,” Ainsworth says. “They are attractive to developers who think it would make a lovely house.”
One reason historic pubs are under threat is that relatively little legislation protects them.
While Belgian beer culture and French gastronomy are included on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list, pubs, which are arguably just as important historically and socially, get no help as the U.K. never signed up to the scheme, which highlights the importance of unique national traditions.
The Campaign for Pubs is working to rectify the situation.
The group is lobbying for a change in planning laws for pubs built before 1975 that would require developers to seek buyers who would keep the place running before demolition or a change in use is approved.