The Apollo

Pub in/near Notting Hill, existed between 1869 and 1983.

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Pub · * · ·
JUNE
17
2015
The Apollo pub was located at 18 All Saints Road, on the southeast corner of the Lancaster Road junction.

It was first listed as a pub, having been built as such in 1869. The first licencee was Mr Edward Ashley.

Until after the Second World War, the pub was a typical Victorian-stlye boozer, just like many others throughout London.

In the 1950s, All Saints Road became a centre for the local West Indian population with the pub at its heart - it was possibly the first pub in Notting Hill where black people were able to be served without hassle.

In 1964, Ringo Starr was across Lancaster Road from the Apollo (on the north east corner) in the Beatles film ’A Hard Day’s Night’. Ringo first appears on St Luke’s Road. From there he’s chased by two screaming girls down Lancaster Road to All Saints Road, where he goes into a second hand clothes shop and comes out in beatnik disguise.

When All Saints Road became part of the heart of the Notting Hill Carnival, the Apollo obtained a bit of a reputation.

After a riot in 1983, the Notting Hill Housing Trust converted the pub into small business black co-op workshops in 1987, including the Mangrove/Metamorphosis/Apollo recording studios where All Saints (the group) was formed.

Some 30 years after its heydey, the Apollo is no more. It first became a recording studios but, being now in trendy Notting Hill, the building is more valuable as real estate than it ever was as a pub.


Main source: It’s Your Colville
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CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LOCALITY

Comment
charlie evans   
Added: 10 Apr 2021 18:51 GMT   

apollo pub 1950s
Ted Lengthorne was the landlord of the apollo in the 1950s. A local called darkie broom who lived at number 5 lancaster road used to be the potman,I remember being in the appollo at a street party that was moved inside the pub because of rain for the queens coronation . Not sure how long the lengthornes had the pub but remember teds daughter julie being landlady in the early 1970,s

Reply
Lived here
Tom Vague   
Added: 9 Sep 2020 14:02 GMT   

The Bedford family at 3 Acklam Road (1860 - 1965)
From the 19th century up until 1965, number 3 Acklam Road, near the Portobello Road junction, was occupied by the Bedford family.

When the Westway construction work began the Bedfords sold up and moved to south London. In the early 1970s the house was taken over by the North Kensington Amenity Trust and became the Notting Hill Carnival office before its eventual demolition.

Anne Bedford (now McSweeney) has fond memories of living there, although she recalls: ‘I now know that the conditions were far from ideal but then I knew no different. There was no running hot water, inside toilet or bath, apart from the tin bath we used once a week in the large kitchen/dining room. Any hot water needed was heated in a kettle. I wasn’t aware that there were people not far away who were a lot worse off than us, living in poverty in houses just like mine but families renting one room. We did have a toilet/bathroom installed in 1959, which was ‘luxury’.

‘When the plans for the Westway were coming to light, we were still living in the house whilst all the houses opposite became empty and boarded up one by one. We watched all this going on and decided that it was not going to be a good place to be once the builders moved in to demolish all the houses and start work on the elevated road. Dad sold the house for a fraction of what it should have been worth but it needed too much doing to it to bring it to a good living standard. We were not rich by any means but we were not poor. My grandmother used to do her washing in the basement once a week by lighting a fire in a big concrete copper to heat the water, which would have been there until demolition.

‘When we moved from number 3, I remember the upright piano that my grandparents used to play �’ and me of sorts �’ being lowered out of the top floor and taken away, presumably to be sold. I used to play with balls up on the wall of the chemist shop on the corner of Acklam and Portobello. We would mark numbers on the pavement slabs in a grid and play hopscotch. At the Portobello corner, on one side there was the Duke of Sussex pub, on the other corner, a chemist, later owned by a Mr Fish, which I thought was amusing. When I was very young I remember every evening a man peddling along Acklam Road with a long thin stick with which he lit the streetlights.’ Michelle Active who lived at number 33 remembers: ‘6 of us lived in a one-bed basement flat on Acklam Road. When they demolished it we moved to a 4-bed maisonette on Silchester Estate and I thought it was a palace, two toilets inside, a separate bathroom that was not in the kitchen, absolute heaven.’



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Lived here
David Jones-Parry   
Added: 7 Sep 2017 12:13 GMT   

Mcgregor Road, W11 (1938 - 1957)
I was born n bred at 25 Mc Gregor Rd in 1938 and lived there until I joined the Royal Navy in 1957. It was a very interesting time what with air raid shelters,bombed houses,water tanks all sorts of areas for little boys to collect scrap and sell them on.no questions asked.A very happy boyhood -from there we could visit most areas of London by bus and tube and we did.

Reply

Christian   
Added: 31 Oct 2023 10:34 GMT   

Cornwall Road, W11
Photo shows William Richard Hoare’s chemist shop at 121 Cornwall Road.

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LATEST LONDON-WIDE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PROJECT

Comment
Charles   
Added: 8 Mar 2024 20:45 GMT   

My House
I want to know who lived in my house in the 1860’s.

Reply

NH   
Added: 7 Mar 2024 11:41 GMT   

Telephone House
Donald Hunter House, formerly Telephone House, was the BT Offices closed in 2000

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Comment
Paul Cox   
Added: 5 Mar 2024 22:18 GMT   

War damage reinstatement plans of No’s 11 & 13 Aldine Street
Whilst clearing my elderly Mothers house of general detritus, I’ve come across original plans (one on acetate) of No’s 11 & 13 Aldine Street. Might they be of interest or should I just dispose of them? There are 4 copies seemingly from the one single acetate example. Seems a shame to just junk them as the level of detail is exquisite. No worries if of no interest, but thought I’d put it out there.

Reply
Comment
Diana   
Added: 28 Feb 2024 13:52 GMT   

New Inn Yard, E1
My great grandparents x 6 lived in New Inn Yard. On this date, their son was baptised in nearby St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch

Source: BDM London, Cripplegate and Shoreditch registers written by church clerk.

Reply
Comment
Vic Stanley   
Added: 24 Feb 2024 17:38 GMT   

Postcose
The postcode is SE15, NOT SE1

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Comment
Gillian   
Added: 17 Feb 2024 00:08 GMT   

No 36 Upper East Smithfield
My great great grandfather was born at No 36 Upper East Smithfield and spent his early years staring out at a "dead wall" of St Katharine’s Docks. His father was an outfitter and sold clothing for sailors. He describes the place as being backed by tenements in terrible condition and most of the people living there were Irish.

Reply

Kevin Pont   
Added: 16 Feb 2024 20:32 GMT   

Name origin
Interestingly South Lambeth derives its name from the same source as Lambeth itself - a landing place for lambs.

But South Lambeth has no landing place - it is not on the River Thames

Reply

C Hobbs   
Added: 31 Jan 2024 23:53 GMT   

George Gut (1853 - 1861)
George Gut, Master Baker lived with his family in Long Lane.
George was born in Bernbach, Hesse, Germany and came to the UK sometime in the 1840s. In 1849, George married an Englishwoman called Matilda Baker and became a nauralized Englishman. He was given the Freedom of the City of London (by Redemption in the Company of Bakers), in 1853 and was at that time, recorded as living at 3 Long Lane. In the 1861 census, George Gut was living at 11 Long Lane.

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LOCAL PHOTOS
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Coronation street party, 1953.
TUM image id: 1545250697
Licence: CC BY 2.0
Notting Hill
TUM image id: 1510169244
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Clayton Arms
TUM image id: 1453029104
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The Foresters
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The Lads of the Village pub
TUM image id: 1556874496
Licence: CC BY 2.0
The Prince of Wales
TUM image id: 1556874951
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Pembridge Road (1900s)
TUM image id: 1556889569
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Kensington Park Hotel
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The Albion, now in residential use.
TUM image id: 1556404154
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In the neighbourhood...

Click an image below for a better view...
Children of Ruston Close This road was the renaming of Rillington Place. Even after renaming, this street, where notorious murders had taken place, proved too much to avoid subsequent demolition.
Licence:


The Tile Kiln, Notting Dale (1824)
Credit: Florence Gladstone
Licence: CC BY 2.0


The Earl Derby stood on the corner of Southern Row and Bosworth Road. The Earl Derby himself was Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby who fought at the battle of Bosworth.
Licence: CC BY 2.0


Kensington Park Hotel
Licence: CC BY 2.0


The Tabernacle is a Grade II*-listed building in Powis Square, W11 built in 1887 as a church. Photographed here in 2010.
Credit: Asteuartw
Licence: CC BY 2.0


Duke of Cornwall, Ledbury Road W11, around 1990. Later the Ledbury restaurant, holder of two Michelin Stars
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St Peter's Notting Hill
Credit: Asteuartw
Licence: CC BY 2.0


SARM Studios, a recording studio, was established by Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records. They were originally known as Basing Street Studios. It has also been known in the past as Island Studios. SARM is an aconym of Sound and Recording Mobiles. At the studios, built inside a former church that had been deconsecrated, Blackwell recorded a number of artists there for Island Records, such as Iron Maiden, Bob Marley, Steve Winwood, Free, Bad Company, Robert Palmer, Jimmy Cliff, Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, King Crimson, John Martyn, Mott the Hoople, Quintessence, Roxy Music, Brian Eno, Sparks, Cat Stevens, Spooky Tooth, Traffic, If, Jethro Tull, the Average White Band, and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band.
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New flats featuring in a photo taken from Adair Road (1962)
Licence: CC BY 2.0


West end of Bevington Road, near to the Golborne Road junction - late 1950s or early 1960s.
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