New pub on site of Laurie Arms will celebrate Hammersmith Palais
Hammersmith is gaining a new pub, the Draft House, on Shepherd's Bush Road at the end of February.
The pub, the seventh of publican Charlie McVeigh's chain of
Draft Houses, is on the site which was formerly home to The Laurie
Arms pub at 238 Shepherd's Bush Road.
The pub served
as a backdrop to The Hammersmith Palais
de Danse which opened as a ballroom
in 1919, and later played host to countless
artists, among them: The Beatles,
The Rolling Stones, The Who, David
Bowie and The Sex Pistols.
The pub will formerly reopen on February 26, but is inviting local people to try it out during special Neighbours Nights from February 23 - 25 when food and drink will be half price.
Draft House promises a colossal range of craft beer on
draft and in bottle, celebrating local
breweries and buying in from
friends in the USA, Belgium, Germany
and the Czech Republic.
" The interior and playlist will be a
celebration of the Hammersmith Palais
- demolished in 2013," says owner Charlie. " Many of us have
happy, sweaty, pogo-ing memories of
the Palais and a little bit of me died
when I heard it was being torn down.
Original gig posters and photos from
the interior will serve as a permanent
memorial to the place."
Draft House will restore the pub's
interior, complete with original ten
foot stained-glass windows on the frontage and it will be
lit by antique French ceramic pendants,
as well as clusters of glass orbs with
golden flex.
There are original brick walls and
Victorian pitch pine cladding, which
will be painted with song lyrics
from the Palais, and hung with
artworks from Charlie’s collection. The oak bar will
be overhung by racked glassware and
metal trough lights.
Outdoors there will be a courtyard and cobbled garden,
complete with wooden clad
drinking den, fitted out
with booths and a stove. The den will
be overhung with a striped canopy, and
there will be a living wall of ferns,
palms and moss.
The menu will consist of hand-crafted pies including Steak & Kidney, Chicken Leek & Ham and Spinach, Sweet Potato & Goat's Cheese. Find out more here and book for Neighbours Nights here.
February 6, 2015
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