The KPH: Groves Last Boozer
43 images Created 18 May 2016
The KPH: Groves Last Boozer
The KPH, aka Keep Paddy Happy, aka The GBH and occasionally referred to as the Kensington Park Hotel closed the doors after 150 years of service on April 5th 2016; after a 3 year legal battle between the landlord and pub leaseholder.
In 1980 (I was 3) my parents went into the KPH and ordered a double brandy each. In my mother’s handbag was a crow bar and hammer. Courage fortified, they left the pub, walked a few doors down Lancaster road and squatted the first floor of an empty late Victorian terrace that forms my earliest memories. My mum used to shout at the Rasta’s next door for shooting bottles in the back garden until one moved in by hoping the back wall and squatting the basement. (He was an inventor and later built me a toy truck with front and rear leaf suspension.)
The KPH stood grand on the corner of Labroke Grove, decor unchanged, internal signage unbothered to display the brands of the beers our past (Double D or Skol anyone?) Not a hint of a micro brewed beer on site. It proclaimed to be nothing more than a boozer on the Grove. It was flanked on each side by not one but three estate agents. A perfect symbol of London’s gentrification; An older, working class established community hub out numbered and outflanked by wealthy new arrivals. (David Cameron’s mother in law owns the interiors shop opposite.) No doubt aspiring to label themselves as ‘Notting Hill’ rather than ‘Grove.’
As the humans shift to urban centres space will be tight, prices will rise and areas will change this is not unique to Labroke Grove or even London. But add to the mix safe investments for a global elite and years of poor housing planning and it feels like every Londoners manor is on borrowed time.
The KPH, aka Keep Paddy Happy, aka The GBH and occasionally referred to as the Kensington Park Hotel closed the doors after 150 years of service on April 5th 2016; after a 3 year legal battle between the landlord and pub leaseholder.
In 1980 (I was 3) my parents went into the KPH and ordered a double brandy each. In my mother’s handbag was a crow bar and hammer. Courage fortified, they left the pub, walked a few doors down Lancaster road and squatted the first floor of an empty late Victorian terrace that forms my earliest memories. My mum used to shout at the Rasta’s next door for shooting bottles in the back garden until one moved in by hoping the back wall and squatting the basement. (He was an inventor and later built me a toy truck with front and rear leaf suspension.)
The KPH stood grand on the corner of Labroke Grove, decor unchanged, internal signage unbothered to display the brands of the beers our past (Double D or Skol anyone?) Not a hint of a micro brewed beer on site. It proclaimed to be nothing more than a boozer on the Grove. It was flanked on each side by not one but three estate agents. A perfect symbol of London’s gentrification; An older, working class established community hub out numbered and outflanked by wealthy new arrivals. (David Cameron’s mother in law owns the interiors shop opposite.) No doubt aspiring to label themselves as ‘Notting Hill’ rather than ‘Grove.’
As the humans shift to urban centres space will be tight, prices will rise and areas will change this is not unique to Labroke Grove or even London. But add to the mix safe investments for a global elite and years of poor housing planning and it feels like every Londoners manor is on borrowed time.
