Warwick Castle, Maida Vale

The Warwick Castle is a grade II listed public house at Warwick Place, Maida Vale, London, that was built in 1846. It and Warwick Place were named after Jane Warwick, the bride of the original landowner. The pub is mentioned in the biographies of a number of music figures and London "characters".

The Warwick Castle
Warwick Place, on an 1860s Ordnance Survey map not long after the street was built. (centre)[1]

History

The pub dates from 1846 and is grade II listed with Historic England along with the whole of the terrace of numbers 1 to 5 Warwick Place on the north side of the street.[2] Among the architectural details mentioned by Historic England in their listing are the scrolled iron lamp and sign brackets for the pub.[3] The pub and the street took their name from the original landowner, who married Jane Warwick of Warwick Hall, near Carlisle, in 1778.[2] Brian Spiller speculates in his book Victorian Public Houses that the pub's "discreet location in a cul-de-sac may have made it a refuge for domestic servants from the neighbouring stucco villas and terraces".[4]

It featured in Maurice Gorham's 1939 book The Local, and his 1949 follow-up volume, Back to the Local, both with illustrations of the pub by the artist Edward Ardizzone, including the front cover of the 1949 volume.[5][6] Ardizzone lived in Maida Vale for most of his life, and Gorham was his regular drinking partner.[7]

Regular customers have included the Welsh drug smuggler and author Howard Marks, who recounts in his autobiography Mr. Nice that he concluded a drug deal there, while half of a consignment of Thai grass was hidden in a car parked outside.[8]

Music entrepreneur Richard Branson was a regular at the pub in the 1970s, early in his career when his office was a barge on the Grand Union Canal about 100m away. Michael Caborn-Waterfield, known for setting up the first Ann Summers sex shop in 1970, was also a customer,[9] as was the musician Rick Wakeman in the 1980s when he lived in nearby Elgin Mansions.[10]

  • The listed terrace of 1 to 5 Warwick Place[3]
  • Scrolled iron lamp and sign brackets mentioned by Historic England[3]
  • Interior showing leaded windows with coloured inserts
  • Interior showing etched windows
gollark: Probably intercept my text messages and such (this is my mobile provider's fault partly).
gollark: The phone network is terrible so I assume they can do horrible things.
gollark: We could make a reddit bot. Somehow.
gollark: Free receiving, however much it costs per sent one.
gollark: I have a spare phone around which could be a SMS bridge if it had a phone contract of some sort.

See also

References
  1. Ordnance Survey, 1860s. Digimap. Retrieved 21 January 2018. (subscription required)
  2. "Warwick Castle". whatpub.com. Archived from the original on 21 January 2018. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  3. Historic England. "The Warwick Castle public house (1273925)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 22 May 2014.
  4. Spiller, Brian. (1973) Victorian Public Houses. Arco. p. 21. ISBN 0668027118
  5. "Edward Ardizzone: The Warwick Castle (from 'The Local', 1939)". artsy.net. Archived from the original on 20 January 2018. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  6. "Back to the Local". www.illustrationcupboard.com. Archived from the original on 21 January 2018. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  7. "Ardizzone Lunchtime Pub Trail". westhousepinner.com. Archived from the original on 21 January 2018. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  8. Marks, Howard (2011). Mr Nice. Canongate Books. p. 149. ISBN 978-0-85786-269-3. Archived from the original on 20 February 2018.
  9. Watson-Wood, Peter. (2012). Serendipity... a Life. AuthorHouse. p. 133. ISBN 978-1-4678-8173-9. Archived from the original on 20 February 2018.
  10. Wakeman, Rick, & Martin Roach. (2009) Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rock Star. London: Preface Publishing. p. 209. ISBN 9781848091757

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