The Lady Hamilton in Kentish Town has closed

PINT pumps have gone dry in a popular Kentish Town pub – after its owners shut the doors due to the closure of the Tube station for a year.

The Lady Hamilton, on the corner of Kentish Town Road and Holmes Road, shut two weeks ago for good.

Owners Paul Davies and Kirk McGrath told the New Journal that after getting through Covid and soaring costs, the one-year closure of Kentish Town Tube due to escalator works was one blow too many.

Mr Davies, whose company also own the Pineapple and Tapping the Admiral, said: “The final nail was closing the Tube station. That was the death knell for us.”

They bought the pub – previously owned by the Camden Town brewery and called Camden’s Daughter, in 2020. But having invested £350,000, they were hit months after opening by Covid.

Mr Davies said: “We bought it nine months before lockdown, which was terrible. We were going to do a lot with it. The trajectory was really good – and then Covid hit us.

“The rent was expensive at £3,000 a week and the pub was hard to keep going at that price but we survived, and subsidised it. “But we just kept being kicked – Covid and then the price of gas and electricity, then the closure of the Tube.

“There was no real warning and it has just wiped out the trade – and it has hit the Pineapple too. We did not want to risk The Pineapple keeping the Lady Hamilton afloat. It is unfortunate – the poor old Lady Hamilton.”

“The High Street has been killed – we are not the only ones. We were hoping to soldier on but we just could not with the Tube closing. We are still recovering from Covid -that will take the pub trade between three or four years. This has not been considered by landlords or others.”

Handing back the keys and going into liquidation was the only option, they added as no other pub were looking to take it on.

He said: “It is extremely annoying and we are very sad. We kept thinking okay, we can do this for a year, maybe another but having the high street completely cut off without any warning was the big thing – there was just no way we could survive that.

“It became a case of not being able to do what we wanted to do with it, we could not afford to wait for the pub to develop the way we wanted it to. We brought in sport and cheaper beer, but that was not at all what we had bought the pub to do.”

The building was also once home to the traditional pub, O’Reilly’s. Kentish Town tube is closed for up to a year for escalator works.

A TfL spokesperson said: “We explored in detail every option to keep Kentish Town Tube station open during the vital escalator replacement work but, due to safety considerations and space constraints, it was sadly not possible. Both escalators at Kentish Town Tube station, which frequently caused last-minute station closures leading to disruption for customers, are being replaced with new, high-performing machines.

“Local people and businesses first received information from us in April about the construction work and are being kept informed on progress now it’s well underway. We are available to visit any local business to discuss the works, at their request.”