A threatened west London pub has been saved after a high-profile campaign to keep it open by Eddie Izzard and singer Cerys Matthews.
The Kensington Park Hotel, widely known as the KPH, in Ladbroke Grove in Notting Hill reopened last week after a two-year refurbishment that cost more than £1 million.
The survival of the 153-year-old pub had been in doubt after it was sold to a property company in 2013. The pub has one of the most colourful histories of any in London.
It was the venue for Tom Jones’s first London gig in 1960, hosted The Clash and Paul Weller, and was even the haunt of English fascist leader Oswald Mosley, Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott and Timothy Evans, who was wrongly hanged in 1950 for the murders of serial killer John Christie.
The KPH’s future was the subject of a petition in 2014 and it was declared an “asset of community value” the next year by Kensington & Chelsea council.
Henry Harris, chef director of Harcourt Inns, which bought the venue in 2017, said it will remain a local pub — but he will also open a first-floor restaurant.
He said: “It is one of the last real pubs in the area… we want to try and attract people who live in the area, rather than tourists. I want people to be able to walk in and order a pint of beer and not worry about if it’s all right to just have a drink without a meal.”
