The Laurel Tree’s spirited return

Published: August 25, 2011
PROPERTY NEWS by YARA SILVA

NOT everybody remembers it now but a “ghost pub” building in Bayham Street was once regarded as one of Camden Town’s hippest nightspots – a match for the likes of the Dublin Castle and the Good Mixer.

If the walls of the bar once known as The Laurel Tree could talk, there would be juicy gossip seeping out of the wallpaper about some of the Britpop’s biggest names and their shenanigans at the start of their careers.

The venue, however, suddenly became a footnote in NW1’s rich musical story when it closed down in 1999 after running into late-hours rows with the council and one of its main attractions, The Blow Up club night, moved to a bigger venue in Soho.

Its image appears on several “dead pub” websites and is fondly recalled for when it was a meeting point for mods.

But the story of The Laurel Tree’s four walls looks set for a new chapter after a brewery specialising in homemade beers revealed plans to move.

BrewDog, which has bars in Glasgow and Aberdeen, are waiting to hear from planning chiefs as to whether it can convert the building back to a pub. Its use has been listed as a restaurant in recent years.

Councillors will make a decision on Thursday but the officials who advise them are already recommending that it gets the nod.

An advisory report notes that BrewDog will simply be returning the building back to its original use.

“The proposal would bring a currently vacant unit into an active use which would improve the vitality and viability of the area,” the report tells planning councillors.

BrewDog had wanted to open the pub – their first in London – this month but the schedule has been put back to November. The hurdles of planning and licensing departments must be cleared first.

An eight-week renovation will see a new bar set across two floors. Bruce Gray, head of the BrewDog bars, said: “It’ll be different to any other bar in London.”

One of the company’s biggest marketing points is its unique range of drinks.

Staff are sent to its brewery in North East Scotland to be fully tutored in how the beers are made.

The company’s sales patter is full of stirring talk of breaking free from the boredom of “industrially brewed lagers and stuffy ales that dominate the UK market”.

It adds: “BrewDog is about breaking rules, taking risks, upsetting trends, unsettling institutions but first and foremost, great tasting beers.”

The Laurel Tree’s pulling power

DAMON drank there, Jarvis danced there, Britpop was born there. The Laurel Tree in Bayham Street was a backstreet drinking hole with treacherously narrow stairs and a habit of playing music too loud for the neighbours. Council inspectors thought the upstairs function room was a health hazard.

But once a week throughout the mid-1990s the venue played host to some of the hottest young stars of the British music scene.

Blur, Elastica, Suede and Pulp were regulars at its northern soul and mod night, Blow Up.

Coachloads of mods came west from Southend. The queues tailed round the block.

Blow Up was started in 1993 by DJ and promoter Paul Tunkin as a reaction to the “styleless” US Grunge scene invading the charts at the time.

At its peak in 1995, Melody Maker magazine declared it “The Club That Changed The World”.

The pub’s fortunes went into decline when Blow Up moved to a larger venue in Soho in 1996.

The Laurel Tree closed in 1999 after the narrow stairs to its upstairs room were deemed unfit for use.

Eighteen years later, the Blow Up club night continues in Denmark Street, near Tottenham Court Road.

It has been voted one of the Top Ten Clubs of the 1990s by Time Out and one of the 5 Classic Clubs of Our Time by Vox magazine.

As for the pub where it all started, the council inspectors got it in the end.
SIMON WROE