2024/03/31 Towns without Pubs
I doubt I'd be alone proclaiming the British pub as one of the great achievements of our civilisation. The public house is a kind of paradox: at once both a house, the province of a family, and a private place; whilst also being public for the community. A pub is where you may sit and do nothing but have a pint or a meal; it's a place to meet up with your kith or kin and spend time. Less commonly now, but more so in the past, a pub was also an inn, participating in the 'bedroom' quality of a house. But as an institution it is under attack. Prices have been steadily rising for publicans to maintain their pubs, and many a pub has closed for not being profitable. Covid was a particularly bad extinction event for the British pub, since they were unable to act as community spots when community was banned. But there's a greater threat to this age old institution which grew up alongside the nation. To this nation, in fact, the pub has a symbiosis with its people; for without the pub upon which the people's lifeblood relies, the British lifestyle may well wither on the vine. But again, there is a greater threat to the future of pubs, and consequently of Britain, that being architecture.
This image posted above I took on the way home from my commute, en route to Loughborough station. You'll notice, that amongst the terraced houses - for once upon a time there was industry in Britain - there is a strange larger house upon the street corner with boarded up windows. This building, now derelict, was once a pub. How can I tell? Well, it's a suburban house which does not look like the rest; it has a strange neo-Tudor look, with the fake wattle and daub which the Victorians loved so much; and the house is large, much too large for anyone who could afford it to want to live in such a neighbourhood. This building was once a pub, yet now it is no more. With the withering of British industry, the traditional white working classes have in part made way to a population who does not drink, and the pub is gone. But the seed of a pub is still there. This community has a pub-shaped hole, but it is merely waiting for a tenant to restore it. One day I hope it will be restored, and this now shady area next to the station will become once more beaming with life.
There was once a people who despised drinking, despised pubs, and despised general merriment. These people were known as the Puritans. The sailed away to sea, to set up dry colonies, and populate American with towns without pubs. And the American suburb today, for my knowledge comes solely from films and media, is a depressing place. Endless identity-less stretches of winding roads, each with sizeable houses jutting off, but no core no heart. Much like vegetation, there are wide long trunk and bough roads, with twigs and leaves branching off; whilst in reality, a city ought to be a human. A city has organs, districts of different utilities, but most importantly, each area should be unique, and bound together within itself. The pub designates a unit of area perfectly. Whilst the parish of the church designates the unit of area vertically in relation to God, the pub works horizontally, and a good deal smaller the area is. The pub is a kind of locus of society, a node of a town, to be protected as a semi-sacred meeting place.
My worry is that British architecture is moving in the same direction. We live in a kind of neo-Puritan parody, and an unexpected consequence of this is that areas of new-builds have no pubs. These architects plan out these spaces with a thousand faddy buzzwords but forget this most important touch. And it will be hard, one day, for these American-style dwellings to become suitable British housing, because, unlike the closed pub of Loughborough, there is no shell for the ghost to slip in to. These plots of new-builds are destined to always be soulless without life, forever destined to be but commuter zones to older parts of the city, and forever destined to be tumorous annexes. Often, new-build areas are within walking distance of pubs, making the choice somewhat acceptable. Even if these new villages within a town, which town planners are in the habit of making now, have no core in of themselves, at least the locals have options. But when these developments are a bit further out of town there will be grave issues; and as the intentionally inflated need for new-builds rise, they will no longer be in range of the pubs that exist.
The main issue is that running and maintaining a pub is too expensive. The relief schemes, if there are any, are simply not enough. For the British as a sovereign people, this is a life and death scenario, for we are symbiotically attached to the system of pubs. The fight is not lost. One does not know what one has lost until its gone. Long live the pubs!
This image posted above I took on the way home from my commute, en route to Loughborough station. You'll notice, that amongst the terraced houses - for once upon a time there was industry in Britain - there is a strange larger house upon the street corner with boarded up windows. This building, now derelict, was once a pub. How can I tell? Well, it's a suburban house which does not look like the rest; it has a strange neo-Tudor look, with the fake wattle and daub which the Victorians loved so much; and the house is large, much too large for anyone who could afford it to want to live in such a neighbourhood. This building was once a pub, yet now it is no more. With the withering of British industry, the traditional white working classes have in part made way to a population who does not drink, and the pub is gone. But the seed of a pub is still there. This community has a pub-shaped hole, but it is merely waiting for a tenant to restore it. One day I hope it will be restored, and this now shady area next to the station will become once more beaming with life.
There was once a people who despised drinking, despised pubs, and despised general merriment. These people were known as the Puritans. The sailed away to sea, to set up dry colonies, and populate American with towns without pubs. And the American suburb today, for my knowledge comes solely from films and media, is a depressing place. Endless identity-less stretches of winding roads, each with sizeable houses jutting off, but no core no heart. Much like vegetation, there are wide long trunk and bough roads, with twigs and leaves branching off; whilst in reality, a city ought to be a human. A city has organs, districts of different utilities, but most importantly, each area should be unique, and bound together within itself. The pub designates a unit of area perfectly. Whilst the parish of the church designates the unit of area vertically in relation to God, the pub works horizontally, and a good deal smaller the area is. The pub is a kind of locus of society, a node of a town, to be protected as a semi-sacred meeting place.
My worry is that British architecture is moving in the same direction. We live in a kind of neo-Puritan parody, and an unexpected consequence of this is that areas of new-builds have no pubs. These architects plan out these spaces with a thousand faddy buzzwords but forget this most important touch. And it will be hard, one day, for these American-style dwellings to become suitable British housing, because, unlike the closed pub of Loughborough, there is no shell for the ghost to slip in to. These plots of new-builds are destined to always be soulless without life, forever destined to be but commuter zones to older parts of the city, and forever destined to be tumorous annexes. Often, new-build areas are within walking distance of pubs, making the choice somewhat acceptable. Even if these new villages within a town, which town planners are in the habit of making now, have no core in of themselves, at least the locals have options. But when these developments are a bit further out of town there will be grave issues; and as the intentionally inflated need for new-builds rise, they will no longer be in range of the pubs that exist.
The main issue is that running and maintaining a pub is too expensive. The relief schemes, if there are any, are simply not enough. For the British as a sovereign people, this is a life and death scenario, for we are symbiotically attached to the system of pubs. The fight is not lost. One does not know what one has lost until its gone. Long live the pubs!