The Story of The Black Lion, Kilburn

The Black Lion, by Dick Weindling 2021

On 3 October 2023, CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) presented the Black Lion with an award as the winner in the National Pub Historic England Conservation category.

Photo by Life in Kilburn

To coincide with the award, we look at the history of this well-known pub.

Kilburn High Road follows the line of an ancient highway, part of the Roman Watling Street. It became a well-used main road, and as the numbers of travellers increased, so they supported the growth of many pubs along both sides of the street. Some started as beer houses, lacking a liquor license but also selling groceries. Others offered a full range of services, from stabling to food, accommodation, and entertainment. A surprising number have survived, with many rebuilds dating from Victorian times. This was the age of the ‘gin palace’, large establishments with elaborate decorations and big exterior lantern lights advertising their presence. 

The best surviving example on the High Road is the Black Lion, opposite the Kiln theatre and bordering on Grange Park. Now Grade II* listed by Historic England, it boasts many interior features dating from around 1898 when it was rebuilt, and CAMRA describes the pub as having an historic interior of national importance. 

We don’t know precisely when the pub started trading but it is generally taken to be some time in the seventeenth century. The licensing record for 1735 named it as The Fighting Cocks. In 1762 it was the Red Lion; eight years later it was the Black Lyon. Rebuilt in brick about 1812, it was called The Black Lion by 1817. 

During the mid to late nineteenth century, the pub was generally owned by a brewery who hired the landlord. At the time there was a core of experienced landlords who moved from pub to pub, always trying to attract established customers to their new premises. 

In March 1858, Thomas Walker Jubb the landlord of the Black Lion, inserted the following in ‘Bell’s Life in London’:

Mr TW Jubb (late of the Broadway, Westminster) begs to inform his friends and patrons that he is now located at the BLACK LION, Kilburn, where he has an excellent FIELD for CRICKET, a quoit and skittle ground, also a bowling green, and beautiful tea gardens, with resources to accommodate all his visitors, ‘Old Jubb’ would feel gratified by a visit from his old friends, who will meet with a hearty welcome. N.B. The members of the Kilburn Cricket club meet at the house on the first Monday in every month.

As the above shows, landlords were anxious to promote their pub, competing with neighbouring establishments for trade. Sometimes their past profession suggested what entertainment could be offered, as at the Victoria Tavern on the corner of Willesden Lane, where an ex-pugilist landlord put on boxing matches. 

Until building transformed the neighbourhood from the 1880s onwards, the Black Lion was a rural pub, where attractions included shooting and cricket. The Perseverance Club became the Kilburn Cricket Club and met at the pub, playing matches on the Black Lion cricket ground, across the main road and bordering the North London Railway (today’s Overground).

1854 poster for a cricket match

In 1862, Thomas Jubb advertised several shooting matches, the targets being pigeons and sparrows. Prizes included a large pig or its equivalent value in money. Jubb moved to the Spotted Dog Willesden where he died in 1869.

Although well received elsewhere in London, an apparently short-lived venture at the Black Lion early in 1880 involved Mr Somerville, ‘the accomplished elocutionist’, who recited poems and books from memory. 

The premises were used, in common with many other public houses, to host land auctions and inquests. It was sometimes called the Black Lion Hotel as the rooms over the bar could be rented. They were also home to the publican’s family and staff. In 1921, the latter numbered 11 persons, six of whom worked behind the bar.

The Black Lion was generally a peaceful pub. But an unusual report was made in July 1841, when a fight broke out between groups of Irish and English haymakers, seasonal workers who only came for the harvest. Having been thrown out of the Black Lion, they attacked each other in the road with rakes and pitchforks. Many were hurt, and a seriously wounded man was taken to hospital. It was reported that the police had ‘the greatest difficulty in quelling the disturbance’. 

Unfortunately for them, the police were viewed as a common enemy. Most subsequent mentions in the local press concern inebriated customers breaking windows or plate glass, but their resulting encounter with the local constabulary could be violent, causing the officers to be off work for some time. In May 1898, a very drunk James Bliss who lived round the corner in Palmerston Road, was asked several times by PC Batt to go home. Bliss refused and when he was arrested, he threw Batt to the ground, badly injuring his left arm. As the policeman attempted to use his whistle to summon help, Bliss pulled it out of his mouth and broke it. In the end, five policemen were needed to carry the drunken man to the cells, ‘for he fought and kicked like a madman’. Bliss was sentenced to a month in prison. 

A year later, a drunken labourer by the name of Benjamin Darvell was charged with assaulting four police officers. When they tried to arrest him, Darvell bit PC Smith’s thumb, penetrating the flesh to the bone. He went on to assault Police Sergeant Hill and PCs Ward and Baker, with kicks to the stomach and the hand. He was given six months’ hard labour by the magistrate, who commented that Darvell was ‘a dangerous man and a bit of a cannibal’.

Early photos of the Black Lion show a substantial building, three storeys high, with a curved corner sign advertising pale ale and three large lantern lamps. In June 1897 the new publican was Robert Egan, a well-known horse dealer. That November a notice describing ‘partial rebuilding and alterations’ to the Black Lion was printed in The Builder. The architect was Robert Alexander Lewcock of Bishopsgate Street and the successful tender for £2,850 had been submitted by local builders John Allen & Sons. But subsequently these changes were abandoned in favour of a complete rebuild. The architect remained in post, but now Messrs Edwards & Medway of Kennington Lane were given the contract. The new premises were lit by electricity and described as ‘one of the handsomest houses of its class in the High Road’. A billiard salon had been created on the ground floor, ‘lofty and spacious, and well lighted. It contains three tables, each of these has a skylight over it’. So now the pub could add billiard matches to its attractions. A corner cupola came complete with weathervane, with the rebuilding date displayed on a triangular pediment at first floor level below a relief of a lion’s head. 

Robert Egan was an interesting man. Born in Ireland, he came to Hackney where he bred and sold horses. He supplied the French Army and was in Paris in 1871 when the Commune seized power. When he came to Kilburn, in addition to running the Black Lion, Egan also continued his interest in horses. He took over a horse breeding stable in Shoot Up Hill near Cricklewood which had been run for many years by Charles Webb. Egan renamed it the Brondesbury Stud Farm. 

Reflecting the large number of Irish residents in Kilburn, in the 1960s the County Sligo Association held regular meetings and events at the Black Lion. 

It became a music pub throughout the 1990s, with bands such as Celtic Reel, Accrington Stanley, Molly Maguires, and Big Chief, featuring sax player Dick Heckstall-Smith who lived in West Hampstead. He was also a member of the famous Jon Hiseman band Colosseum. 

In March 2022 London Village Inns, run by Martin Harley and his team, took over the lease of the Black Lion to add to the other four pubs in the group. They undertook a very careful renovation which led to the CAMRA award.

The impressive interior of the Black Lion has retained many elements of the 1898 fittings and décor. Etched glass, a U-shaped bar, fireplaces with overmantels, elaborate friezes and a plaster work ceiling (damaged by a flood in 2020). The billiard room is now the pub’s restaurant. 

Four copper relief plaques have also survived, created by sculptor Frederick Thomas Callcott whose architect brother Charles went into partnership with Lewcock. They include one entitled, ‘Taking the waters at Kilburn Wells’. It may come as a surprise to know that in the late eighteenth century many visitors came to Kilburn to drink medicinal waters from a well situated close to the junction of Belsize Road and the High Street.
 

Interior photo by Meg Weindling Horan, 2023