Teh tale of the ruin of the Sir George Robey, later the Powerhaus, in Seven Sisters Road, Finsbury Park
THE BLUE FACADE OF FINSBURY PARK by Sarah Leo
Only a stone’s throw away from the busy Finsbury Park Interchange, loud music buzzes out
of a beautiful three-storey Victorian building. Its interior is made of dark wood and large ornate mirrors. It feels quite old fashioned – even for the late 60s. On the tiny stage, the rather anarchic punk rock band MacTittie performs songs from the pre-rock’n’roll era in front of a crowd of hippies. They love it. Andrew Titcombe, 63-year-old singer, songwriter and music producer, remembers the venue as if he had left the stage only yesterday. With drummer Paul McKenna, bass player Steve and guitarist Terry, he formed MacTittie who played at their pub, the Sir George Robey, as regular as barbers had to cut pageboys.
“The Robey was a great place, a typical English pub, working class. This doesn’t sound very special, but there was something about it. I remember Paul playing the drums once while eating a salad off of his floor tom and washing it down with a pint all at the same time. This was something that would typically happen at the Robey. Only at the Robey probably,” Titcombe remembered.
Located at the corner of Seven Sisters and Isledon Road, the Sir George Robey pub and music venue used to be the heart of the multicultural ward of Finsbury Park in the 60s and 70s. Over the many years of neglect, it has turned into a crumbling, locally listed Grade II building and not a single tune has found its way outside in a very long time.
Its electric blue facade gives the building an unusual character amongst its bland, modernised neighbours. The upper floors are formed by a traditional brick and stucco square block and, being set back from the actual facade, form a large roof terrace. The venue had room for some 260 guests, included two bars, a courtyard on the South side of the building and that small stage, that hosted so many legendary nights.
The pub was named after George Robey, an English music-hall comedian of the early twentieth century. Robey often donned a drag queen outfit and pretended to be hypnotised while he performed. Compared to its namesake, the pub did not fall short in terms of outrage and curiosity. Patriotic North Londoner and best-selling author Nick Hornby even rendered homage to the George Robey in his book (and film) High Fidelity where his protagonist is a regular of the “Harry Lauder”. Hornby’s pub was located in the same patch of North London and Harry Lauder was no other than George Robey’s Scottish equivalent one hundred odd years ago.
But the Robey’s heydays are over. Under the current ownership of Consistent Management Solutions Limited, the building has been facing the forces of nature for a very long time and it seems as if only the scaffolding would hold up the crumbling brick walls. The entire building has been covered in graffiti artwork; the windows smashed or removed entirely. The barricaded remains are illustrated with peculiar faces, almost as if somebody was trying to remind of the venue’s previous life.
“I was really sad to hear that they closed it down,” said Andrew Titcombe, remembering the day when his brother broke the news to him. “I loved my time in the band, and the Robey was a big part of that”, he said.
Turning back the clocks to the golden era of the ward, not only the North London music scene, but also the George Robey has seen quite turbulent times. Erected in the 1870s, the building was initially used as a traditional English pub – The Clarence Tavern back then – and was run by William George Bradley. When he had to file for bankruptcy, the tavern was closed and transformed to the Sir George Robey in the 1960s. The pub and music venue was modernised to cater to the time’s need for a free-spirited venue to peacefully gulp one or the other pint.
The pub’s Victorian, electric blue facade is in desperate need of a new splash of colour.
Joe Giltrap, 67-year-old Folk musician and host of the George Robey until 1987, said: “The Robey was cutting edge before that term meant anything; we put on all kinds of music and made our mark on the London music scene.” The stage saw countless infamous artists and bands, all of them very punk and very rock. Performances ranged from the newly formed Blur in 1989 to The Exploited, Hawkwind and Jesus and the Mary Chain. Rumour has it that even the legendary US rockers No Doubt have performed on the pub’s stage in the early 90s.
However, in 1996 the old George Robey faced yet another change, when self-made music promoter Vince Power and his Mean Fiddler group bought the venue and moved the Powerhaus music venue from Angel to Finsbury Park. Most notably, the über-famous German metal band Rammstein staged their very first UK gig at the Powerhaus in 1997 – although with considerably less of their typical pyrotechnics. According to Metal Hammer magazine, they didn’t want to “turn a large portion of salubrious Finsbury Park into a smouldering crater”. How very thoughtful.
Even though the venue was very popular in the area, the Powerhaus saw a sudden end in 2004, when Vince Power split from Mean Fiddler. He decided to go solo and established the Vince Power Music Group. Power was not available to comment as to why he did not keep the Powerhaus in his portfolio. Looking at his current venues, which include The Pigalle Club, 101 Bar and The Elusive Camel, it can be assumed that the Powerhaus’ edge probably did not match his business model anymore.
In May 2005, Consistent Management Solution Limited acquired the location for £950,000 and submit a full planning application to “refurbish and extent [the] existing building to provide [a] bar, nightclub, casino and music venue”.
“The redevelopment of this important and prominent building will not only improve the facade and streetscape along Seven Sisters Road, but will also regenerate the area and increase,” stated Ben Colmer, Case Officer of the Islington Planning Committee, when he granted the application.
Six years later, the site still hasn’t seen any builders and the planning permission has expired. Trying to contact Consistent Management Solution turned out to be impossible. The untraceable company was registered in Cardiff in 2003, by Imagine Business Cosec Ltd – yet another untraceable business. However, according to business reports, the company still exists, even though HM Revenue and Customs has filed a winding up petition against the company in April 2010. The petition was dismissed in August of the same year. The annual return balance from February 2011, states an address and the name of the current director. The address does not house the company. The current director, Mr Stephen Popat, is nowhere to be found.
An employee of the Land Registry, who preferred to stay anonymous, said: “It is not unusual to see properties being secured by companies that are only borderline legit. I assume they are trying to scatter their assets, so they disguise themselves as various companies and go bust eventually. Technically everything is legit. There is nothing that can be done about it really.”
Newly elected Mayor of Islington and former ward councillor of Finsbury Park, Phil Kelly, would have also liked to see progress with the development. He said: “I am very cross about this but these things are in the hands of the owners. I mean, they should get on with it [the development], frankly.”
Finsbury Park resident Jane, a 34-year-old photographer, said: “We’ve just been talking about that the other night actually – it feels like the Powerhaus was closed decades ago. It’s such a shame that you have to take the tube to get to a decent pub these days!”
Andrew Perkins, 27, who lived in the area for two and a half years, said: “I really like living in the area, I wouldn’t really consider living anywhere else in London. The downside is the nightlife – apart from The Big Red in Holloway, there isn’t anything worth mentioning.”
Not only the George Robey’s closure had a great impact on the Finsbury Park community. Another Grade II-listed building, just as greatly missed by the ward’s locals, is the Rainbow Theatre that is located opposite the George Robey. The cinema was built in the 1930s, and was transformed into a music venue in the 60s and 70s. The Who played the opening night and Jimi Hendrix burnt his first guitar there. The list of legendary rock bands on stage is endless. Eventually closed in closed in 1982, the Rainbow Theatre stayed abandoned until 1995, when the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God bought the venue. The former legendary cinema and gig venue is now used as their religious headquarters.
Finsbury Park’s community has changed immensely over the decades and the area is now considered to be one of the most dangerous patches in London. In March 2011 alone, the Haringey police department reported 1148 crimes and ASBs in the area’s postcode N4. A staggering 473 of these crimes were reported as antisocial behaviour; 159 were violent crimes – breaking down to more than five violent acts per day. Astonishing and just as disturbing figures, looking at the relatively small area.
“Let’s be honest: the area is not the most, let’s say, attractive, one for opening a business or even a pub where you’d constantly have to fear turmoil,” said MacTitties’ drummer Paul McKenna. “But I guess mostly the increase in supermarkets selling cheap booze led to the demise of many pubs in the first place. Music pubs were no exception – business moves fast so we all need to keep up to date,” he reasoned.
Jim Packer, historian and author of two books on the history of pubs, said: “I saw an article some time back saying pubs are hard to make a living from in these times. The pub owning companies have borrowed heavily to acquire pubs and so have to charge high rents which are now uneconomic from the licensees point of view. The pub owning companies find it hard to sell the freehold because of depression in property prices the value realised wouldn’t clear their loan debt.”
“The George Robey is just one of many. I have done a check and we had 91 pubs in the area in 2007, 41 of which were Locally Listed and six of which were Statutorily Listed Grade II. Since then we have lost 12 pubs, six were locally listed – this means a decrease of 13 to 15 per cent,” Packer claimed.
However, there is a hint of light at the end of the tunnel, that will brighten up Finsbury Park’s future – for students at least. The Irish student accommodation provider Ely Property has received full planning permission in 2009 to develop a new accommodation scheme on the fields next to the George Robey’s property. The plans promise living space for 400 students on five floors as well as commercial space on the ground floor. With regards to the Rainbow Theatre, that sits just on the opposite side of the road, each floor will visualise a “subdued version of a rainbow.”
Quite the plan. Mayor Phil Kelly is concerned about this development. “We have to be careful that we don’t unbalance the developments. What we really need in Islington is social housing for families – but I’d rather have a student hostel than the site in Isledon Road that is well underused at present.”
“I am really against this”, said Andrew Perkins, “No more student accommodation. As a single professional, renting is the only option I have right now and it is really difficult to find a place in the area that isn’t a complete hole, run by a dodgy, unscrupulous landlord. What I would like to see are some government run schemes for young professionals to rent a decent place.”
Mayor Kelly said that he has no criticism over this view but said that, financially speaking, these powers wouldn’t exist at the moment. “We have got strategic plans and we won’t be allowing any more student hostels in the area – there are enough. We have moved in that direction, but this application pre-dated that so we’re stuck with that,” Mayor Kelly stated.
“Finsbury Park has changed a lot. There is a lot more going on there, there are lots more developments happing around Finsbury Park. So one hopes that the developers who own the place now will see the opportunity and just get on with it,” he said.
The future of Finsbury Park is uncertain but it is clear that something has to be done to reinvigorate the area, trying to get back and save some of the past’s merits. Even if it is only by reopening a landmark pub. Surely, MacTittie would love to rock the stage in a long-due reunion with their former home.
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Ed, I recently added a picture of the pub in about 1905.
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