The Hampstead Heritage Pub Crawl: The Duke of Hamilton

The Duke of Hamilton

I took a roundabout route up the hill from The Flask on my way to The Duke of Hamilton, so I could eyeball  the Wells Tavern and The Old White Bear (formerly, Ye Olde White Bear) along the way .  I had excluded those historic pubs from my original list of contenders because I had heard that, as the Old Bull & Bush, recent renovations had turned them into gastropubs that were more gastro than pub.  I confirmed that neither was suitable for the pub crawl, but it seems that Heidi, Jack and I will have no shortage of new places to try for Sunday roast.

I knew from the first that The Duke was going to be different—it was so quiet and empty-looking from the street I thought it was closed.  As I went up the steps to the entrance, I passed a small group of twenty-somethings debating whether to go in on a lark, as if they had been dared to do so.  I had no such qualms and headed inside.

The Duke's Bar

And I immediately thought I’d regret it.  The place was stone quiet – no music, no television, no murmur of conversation or clinking glasses.  There was no restaurant buzz because there is no food service here.  Instead, a couple of grizzled old regulars stood at the left end of the bar, and a few more sat at a table in the corner.  Off to my right sat a little family of French tourists with soft drinks, looking every bit like they had wandered in by mistake and been trapped inside.   I felt a bit like Griffin Dunne and David Naughton when they walked into the Slaughtered Lamb in An American Werewolf in London.

And, in fact, the Duke reminded me a bit of that pub.  The interior is a squared off U-shape around the bar, with a fireplace on either side.  Checkers and chess tables were off the left; darts off to the right.  The decor consisted of old cricket and rugby memorabilia, hung over (and sometimes pasted onto) 1960s era wallpaper.  The bar itself was topped with an attractive panel of wood and stained glass, with up-curving lamps reflecting light off the ceiling.  The overall effect was of a posh pub gone to seed, or a seedy pub slightly spiffed up.

I suspect it is the former, because the Duke has been having a rough time of it lately.  Although there has been a pub under the same name on the site since 1721, the Duke’s current building is not protected.  It sits in New End, well away from the High Street, across from a former hospital that has been converted into residences.  (The pub’s next door neighbour, the New End Theatre, was the hospital’s mortuary until 1974.)  When the lease was due to expire, the owners notified the tenant publican that the pub was to be closed and converted into housing.

There was a popular uprising against the plan, and the owners eventually withdrew their planning application.  It is believed, however, that they intend to file a new application, and in the meantime the publican’s lease expired.  The Duke is thus operating in limbo, and that’s how the place feels.

There were five cask handles at the bar, but only three were pouring – two were the ever-present London Pride, the third was Fuller’s ESB.  I got an ESB and scuttled off with my beer and my Faulkner novel to a little table off to the right of the bar, near a framed photograph of Oliver Reed, who (I am informed) made great strides toward drinking himself to death in this very pub.  Other notable patrons have included Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Peter O’Toole.

As I sat and enjoyed my pint and read my book, two or three groups of younger people came in and the old regulars began to take their leave, off home to supper.  Eventually, a group of college-age kids occupied the darts area, and by the time I drained the glass and toddled off home, the place at last felt like a pub.

The Verdict:  If The Duke survives, its location in the New End and its distinct look make it a likely stop for a quick one.