Sam Cullen on Barnet’s lost pubs

The Bald Faced Stag pub in Burnt Oak — The Bald Faced Stag in Burnt Oak – (Credit – Ewan Munro)

London’s pubs have been an integral part of the city’s culture for centuries and have particularly fascinated me ever since I moved here. Of course, they’re great places to socialise but I think there’s more to it than that because they can tell us so much about the cultural history and fabric of the capital.

The same rings true about the pubs that have closed and that’s why I decided to write London’s Lost Pubs, covering all of Greater London, as I didn’t want to see the memories of these places disappear over time.

Below are a small collection of those I’ve featured across Barnet, to give you a flavour of what you’ll find in the book.

Bald Faced Stag

The blogger Pete Scully in 2009 who sketched this Burnt Oak pub noted it had a sign on its exterior saying ‘Please Beware, This is the Bald Faced Stag’.

It also featured in writer and broadcaster Robert Elms book London Made Us, where he gave a very vivid description of the place as a boozer so wantonly wild it was an entertainment in itself’, explaining how it wasn’t uncommon for the regulars to lock the landlord in the cupboard and help themselves to the drinks, as well as drunken duels taking place in the car park with chair legs.

The Stag closed in 2012 and was converted into a furniture shop which traded for a few years before the building was demolished in 2018 and replaced with housing.

Jack Straw’s Castle

Just on the borough border, probably the most famous of all the lost pubs in my book. Records suggest a pub of this name first popped up on the Heath in the 18^th century and, after it was badly damaged during the blitz, it was rebuilt and reopened in 1964.

Jack Straw’s boasted an impressive literary heritage, with both Charles Dickens being known to frequent it, as well as featuring in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Dickens was said to have had a fondness for the ‘red hot’ chops they served up here.

It closed early in the new millennium when it was snapped up by a property developer. The majority of the building was converted into private flats in 2003 and they even got their famous namesake Jack Straw MP(then Foreign Secretary) to mark the occasion.

A space on the ground floor remains vacant and was originally reserved for a pub restaurant. The building still proudly says Jack Straws Castle on the front. Who knows, maybe one day it will be revived?

Railway Hotel

Of all the 200 plus pubs I featured in my book, I’d have to say The Railway Hotel in Edgware feels the unluckiest of the lot.

It first opened in 1932 in the common ‘Brewers Tudor’ look that was popular at the time and was Grade II listed in 2003. It’s been closed since 2006 and its deteriorating condition meant it was on the ‘at risk’ register for English Heritage in 2011.

Since then it has been hit by a total of three fires, in 2016, 2018 and most recently in 2021. By 2023 the building was said to be in severe danger of irreparable damage and that May Barnet Council voted to issue a Compulsory Purchase Order to acquire the pub.

The pub remains derelict and fears over its future have been raised on multiple occasions in Barnet Post as there is a strong community support to see it brought back to life.

London’s Lost Pubs by Sam Cullen is available through Pen and Sword: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Londons-Lost-Pubs-Hardback/p/51878

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