Chelsea – Missed the Miniskirt, Don’t Miss the Pubs

Welcome to Publicity - London By Pub - the travel podcast that helps you actually experience London, not just tick off landmarks.

In this debut episode, we crack open Chelsea - London’s posh-meets-punk neighborhood -where our host Andy (a British expat now based in Miami) retraces a trip that should’ve been epic… but ended in full-on travel regret. 

With Expat Andy on board, we’ll get to revisit Chelsea but with a walking tour of five iconic pubs, each one a portal into the stories guidebooks don’t tell - from royal scandals to Rolling Stones auditions to a still-unsolved murder in the cellar.

From bohemian past to posh present, Chelsea's pubs are more than just pretty pints - they're cultural cornerstones. From The Cross Keys to The World's End, each stop reveals a different side of Chelsea - art, royalty, punk, pottery, and that unsolved murder.

You’ll also learn why British pubs are disappearing fast, and why visiting them now isn’t just fun - it’s urgent.

This is trip planning meets storytelling. A podcast to listen to before you pack your bag.

Transcript

PUBLICITY - LONDON BY PUB

EPISODE 1: Chelsea – Missed the Miniskirt, Don’t Miss the Pubs

[VOICE - COLD OPEN]

Last October, I stepped out of Sloane Square tube station into one of those perfect London autumn days. Crisp air, blue sky. That golden light that makes you feel lucky to be alive.

I was visiting from Miami - where I now live. I'd given myself the morning to just… walk. No agenda. Just wander down The Kings Road in Chelsea and see where it took me.

This is the neighborhood where Oscar Wilde penned his wit, J.M.W. Turner painted his masterpieces, Mary Quant invented the miniskirt, and Vivienne Westwood sold punk fashion to the world. The "Village of Palaces" that became London's ultimate bohemian quarter before morphing into one of the world's most expensive postcodes.

Chelsea High Street that morning was lovely. Designer boutiques, high-end homeware shops, the kind of place where even the dry cleaners look expensive. I passed handsome pubs with hanging flower baskets and chalkboard menus promising Sunday roasts. Everything felt prosperous, clean, quintessentially… nice.

I found a small park with an odd, yet beautiful monument to Oscar Wilde – a sculpture of a head and hand emerging from stone. I sat on a bench, fed the pigeons, took photos, wondering vaguely about his connection to Chelsea.

It was a perfectly pleasant morning.

A week later, back in Miami, I'm watching a YouTube video about London history. The episode is about The Kings Road, and I'm watching footage of the exact street I had just walked down…

And I'm learning that I missed… everything.

I flew across an ocean and I missed it all.

That's expensive. It’s frustrating and it’s what I call Travel FOMO - the fear of being physically in a place but missing its soul.

You deserve better than that. And I can help.

I'm Expat Andy, and this is Publicity - London By Pub.

[MUSIC – INTRO]

ACT 1: THE DECODER RING

If you've been to London, you know this feeling.

You did the research. You checked the boxes: Tower of London, British Museum, West End show… You hit the landmarks, took the photos. But walking back to your hotel, a vague feeling hits, "Where’s the REAL London?"

You passed interesting pubs, perhaps wondering about their stories? You noticed blue plaques on buildings but couldn't read them from street level. You overheard locals talking about neighborhoods you'd never heard of. There's this rich layer happening all around you, and you're just… passing through it.

So you try to fix it. Get a better guidebook. Walking tour. Apps. Travel bloggers.

None of it works and here's why.

Guidebooks tell you what to see , “This building is important" - but not why it became important. How did this corner become the birthplace of punk? Why did artists gather here and not there? Guidebooks give you a checklist, not understanding.

Walking tours are better - at least you get stories. But you're still observing, not understanding. The tour ends, and you still can't read the place yourself.

Blue plaques? They're mounted very high up on the buildings and the print is really small. Even if it's readable, they just say "Oscar Wilde lived here." They don't tell you why he lived there. What brought him to the place? What was it like then? How has it changed?

You end up with disconnected facts. No pattern. No understanding.

What you actually need:

·       The pattern of how neighborhoods transform. Industrial to artistic. Working-class to luxury. Bohemian to corporate.

·       The layers. Who was here first? Who came next? Who got priced out? What cultural movements happened and why here? 

·       The economics. Why is it so expensive now and what made it affordable at one time? When did that change?

Once you see those patterns, every building tells a story. Every street name reveals something. You develop X-ray vision for cities.

And there's only ONE type of building where all those layers - past, present, economics, cultural identity – they all exist in the same physical space that you can actually walk into.

The pub.

Not because pubs are quaint. Because of what pubs ARE.

For centuries, the pub has been the living room of British neighborhoods. Where locals gather, deals get made, community happens. When a neighborhood changes - gentrification, immigration, artistic movements. The pub reflects it:

·       The building tells you the economic story. Victorian Gin Palace? Middle-class money. Working-class local? Affordable housing nearby. Gastropub? Gentrification.

·       The history tells you who lived here. Artists drank at The Cross Keys  because Chelsea was affordable in the 1800s. Punks gathered at The World's End because counterculture needs cheap rent.

·       The current state tells you what it is now. Fighting to survive? Thriving gastropub? Converted to flats? Each answer reveals today's economic reality.

Unlike a museum, with a pub, you're actually inside the story. You sit where Dylan Thomas sat. Stand where The Stones rehearsed. You experience three centuries of transformation in one room.

Here's the powerful part. Once you learn to read pubs, you can read any neighborhood.

Walk into Shoreditch and immediately spot the pattern. Industrial pubs converted to hipster bars; working-class history repackaged for tech workers. You'll see gentrification in real-time.

Walk through Spitalfields. Immigrant communities transforming pub culture; Bengali restaurants next to Victorian pubs - layers of history in the architecture.

This is pattern recognition. You’ll read cities like an archaeologist reads layers of earth.

That's what this show teaches you.

Every episode - one neighborhood, three to five pubs, or one theme across multiple neighborhoods. By the end, you understand its entire arc. Who lived there? Why they came?  What changed? What it is now, and where it's heading? 

And critically - you know exactly where to go and what to look for.

You'll soon be able to decode any British neighborhood for yourself. You’ll see the patterns. Read the layers. Understand what you're looking at.

Your friends will photograph landmarks. You'll understand the city.

Let me show you how this works. Let's decode Chelsea.

[MUSIC – BUMPER 1]

ACT 2: CHELSEA'S STORY THROUGH ITS PUBS

Before we get to our pubs, you need to understand what made Chelsea... Chelsea.

The name itself tells you something. The British Guild of Tourist Guides tells us that Chelsea derives from "Chelcheya" - meaning either 'chalk wharf' or 'shelf of sand.' A landing place for boats. This was river territory from the start.

We know from British History Online that in the 700s, church councils called the Synod of Chelsea were held in Anglo-Saxon England.

We know from Domesday Book records that by 1086, Chelsea was an established settlement in William the Conqueror’s new kingdom. 

The British Guild of Tourist Guides tells us Offa, King of the Mercians - famous for Offa's Dyke, the vast earthwork that separates England and Wales - assembled his lords and clergy here at his synod in AD 787.

Roman bones and British weapons discovered on the riverbed during the construction of Chelsea Bridge in 1851 reveal an earlier invasion. They show us that a pitched battle was fought here during the early part of the first century. In those days Chelsea lay some distance beyond the walls of Londinium, the Roman walled town in the location of the present-day City of London.

But it really enters the modern story when Henry VIII acquired Chelsea Manor in the 1530s. Two of his wives lived there, and his daughter Elizabeth - who went on to take the top job in the country becoming Queen Elizabeth I. By 1694, Chelsea was described as a "Village of Palaces” and had a population of 3,000.

Chelsea sat just outside London proper. Close enough to access the city, far enough to escape it. That geography shaped everything. 

Varley Journal confirms that in 1694, King Charles II built a private road - The King's Road - connecting St James's Palace to Hampton Court. For nearly two centuries, only the royal family and their guests could use it. That exclusivity, that separation from London's noise and grime, made Chelsea attractive to artists and intellectuals who wanted proximity to London without being swallowed by it.

Estate Agents Russell Simpson tell us that The King’s Road finally opened to the public in 1830. From thereon, Chelsea's transformation accelerated. The light from the Thames, the proximity to London, the relative affordability compared to Mayfair or Belgravia - it all attracted painters. The Pre-Raphaelites set up studios along Cheyne Walk. Turner lived here. Whistler lived here. To meet the growing demand for property, large Victorian townhouses and mansion blocks soon added to Chelsea’s Georgian terraces.

Website pastinthepresent.net informs us that by the 20th century, Chelsea had transformed from riverside village to a bohemian enclave, and The King’s Road became its glittering spine in the 1950s and ’60s. It buzzed with the energy of artists, musicians and rebellious youth.

The BBC tells us of Mary Quant opening her shop Bazaar on The King's Road in 1955 - where the miniskirt made its debut. King’s Road websitetells us the location – 138A King’s Road, was honored with its own Blue Plaque on September 16, 2019.

The Victoria and Albert Museum informs that by 1974s, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren were selling punk to the world from an outrageously named shop called Sex at Number 430 King’s Road. Bondage gear, ripped clothing, safety pins - the aesthetic that defined a generation of rebellion was born in a shop on Chelsea's high street.

The street wasn’t just about clothes, though. It was a stage people came to see and be seen. Mick Jagger, Twiggy, Brigitte Bardot. They all walked the same pavement as the pensioners and punks. Cafes, boutiques and pubs flourished. Each one a small theater of its own. 

One neighborhood. Multiple transformations. Royal retreat to artists' quarter to counterculture epicenter to luxury postcode.

And the pubs? They witnessed it all.

Let's start with one that represents Chelsea's industrial past.

THE CHELSEA POTTER

According to The Londonist,The Chelsea Potterwas built in 1842 as the Commercial Tavern, renamed in the 1950s to honor Chelsea's pottery tradition. It still sits today at 119 King's Road, SW3 4PL. 

The name references Chelsea's forgotten industrial past. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Chelsea was famous for its pottery - Chelsea porcelain was prized across Europe.

The De Morgan Collection tells us that William De Morgan (1839-1917) was a contemporary of Arts and Crafts Designer William Morris. Morris had a great influence on De Morgan’s work. De Morgan had his ceramics workshop in Chelsea, creating vivid color tiles, and luster wear that are now collectors' items.

The Chelsea Potter served the workers in those industries. The skilled craftsmen, the laborers, the people who made Chelsea's pottery reputation. It was a working-class pub in what was, before the artists arrived, a working-class industrial neighborhood.

Fast forward and CAMRA reports Jimi Hendrix drank here. The Rolling Stones too.

Today, The Chelsea Potter is owned by the Greene King Group, a corporate chain, but no slouches when it comes to stewardship of historic pub buildings. It's been renovated, modernized, but retains its high, ornate ceiling supported by beautiful slender columns. The name remains - a reminder that before this was a luxury neighborhood, before it was an artists' quarter, it was a place where people made things.

The pub survives to document Chelsea's industrial heritage. One that most visitors, myself included, have no clue about.

THE PHENE

A quick 7-minute walk brings us to our second stop. We’re at The Phene located at 9 Phene Street, SW3 5NZ.  

CAMRA tell us The Pheneis named after local physician Doctor John Samuel Phene - wealthy, eccentric landowner credited with initiating the idea of planting trees in city streets. It’s … architecturally unusual - attached to a terrace of just one house.

The London Evening Standard reports Footballer George Best lived around the corner - this was his local. After George passed in 2005, The Phene Arms slid into decline, losing regulars after the death of its long-serving landlord. Kensington and Chelsea Council stripped its license.

In 2011, developers tried converting it to a private house. The London Evening Standardreported Actor Hugh Grant joined a band of locals organizing to save The Phene, just like at our next pub - The Cross Keys, it worked. The Phene was saved.

CAMRA says today’s Phene is a high-end gastropub. 

THE CROSS KEYS

Out again and a 5-minute walk takes us close to The Thames for our next pub, The Cross Keysat 1 Lawrence Street,  SW3 5NB. 

The Chelsea Society tells us this is Chelsea’s oldest pub. The building predates most of what you see around it. When it opened, this was still a village outside London. The clientele would have been watermen from the Thames, local merchants, residents of the grand houses along Cheyne Walk.

By the Victorian era, things were changing. Affordable rents and beautiful Thames River light attracted artists. Artists need somewhere to drink, to meet, to collaborate. According to website Writer’s Path, this was The Cross Keys.  

Carlyle Mansions – the building opposite The Cross Keys was nicknamed, “Writer’s Block” for the number of artists who lived there - Henry James, T. S Eliot, Ian Flemming, Erskine Childers, Somerset Maugham. 

Nearby Cheyne Walk is a laundry list of creative, influential residents. You know - many, if not all of these residents had to have frequented The Cross Keys.  

These weren't just famous people who happened to drink here. The Cross Keys would have been their local. The place where they conducted business, made deals, argued about art, complained about money. The informal space where Chelsea's artistic community actually functioned.

According to local lore, Agatha Christie was a regular customer. She supposedly used The Cross Keys as inspiration for settings in her mystery novels. 

While we’re on the subject, The Cross Keys has its own unsolved mystery. CAMRA tells us that early morning, 17 January 1920, the body of Landlady Frances Buxton was found in the pub cellar beneath a pile of smoldering sawdust. She had been hit on the head with a bottle and then strangled. Suspects included the “Monocled Mutineer” Percy Toplis, but the case remains unsolved to this day.  

But here's why this pub matters for understanding Chelsea. When you see The Cross Keys,you get physical proof that Chelsea was affordable enough for working artists. That's why they came here instead of Mayfair. That's why the neighborhood developed its bohemian identity.

The pub tells you the economic story; and this story? Well, how’s this for economics!

The London Evening Standard reported that in 2012 the pub closed, boarded up by the Owner. A property developer looked at the building and saw something worth over £10 million - if they could convert it to residential use. A pub serving the community for 304 years. Where Britain’s greatest artists had gathered. Where the neighborhood’s identity was forged and maintained. About to become a luxury residence.

The BBC tells us that the locals fought back! Squatters occupied the building. Community groups organized. Zac Goldsmith, local MP, got involved. Piers Morgan threw his weight behind it. According to CAMRA, this was one of the hardest-fought battles in London to save a pub from developers.

Well, they won. Parsons Green Land bought the building for £3.9 million - less than developers would have paid - specifically to keep it as a pub. It reopened in gastropub aesthetic. One of the physical reminders of Chelsea's artistic past – saved.

Here's the thing about Chelsea today. It's expensive. Really expensive. UK government statistics show the average property price in Chelsea in 2025 was £1,195,000. The artists can't afford to live here anymore. The bohemians are gone. But The Cross Keys remains as proof that Chelsea wasn't always like this.

When you walk into The Cross Keys today, you’re not just getting a drink in an historic building. You’re experiencing a living victory. This pub exists because the community fought for it. That Sunday roast? Served in a room where Dylan Thomas recited poetry. That real ale? You’re drinking it because local activists refused to let their neighborhood lose another piece of itself. That’s not nostalgia. That’s a neighborhood making an active choice about its identity, and you get to be part of it.

The pub is the receipt for a different version of the neighborhood.

THE PIG'S EAR

Off we go again to our penultimate pub stop - The Pig’s Earlocated at 35 Old Church Street, SW3 5BS. This pub’s story goes from military history to gastropub survival.

CAMRA tells us the pub dates to the late 17th century when it was named The Black Lion. Peninsular War hero John Moore, 

"Quaffed the unadulterated beverage of malt and hops"

mylondon.news reported that Chelsea football legends Frank Lampard and his dad bought the pub in 2008. By then the name was The Pig’s Ear. 

Website justluxe.com reports that during this time, Prince William and Kate Middleton were regulars at The Pig’s Ear. The flat on Old Church Street that Kate shared with her sister, Pippa, was a couple of doors down.

Website mylondon.newsreports that in 2018 The Lampards sold the leasehold for the pub to entrepreneur Andy Scott, yet retained building ownership. At this time the pub’s name changed again to The Chelsea Pig.

Gastro blog hot-dinners.com tells us that in 2024, pub ownership transferred to the Gladwin Brothers, and the name reverted back to The Pig’s Ear which is Cockney Rhyming Slang for Beer.  

D.W. Barret Derby’s “Life and Work Among the Navvies,” 1880 gives us this example,

“Now, Jack, I’m going to get a tiddly wink, a pig’s ear.”

Translation A tiny drink of beer. I wonder what you’d get if you asked a Chelsea bartender for that today? I think you might get thrown out on your pig’s ear. You like my addition to Cockney Rhyming Slang?

High-end furniture designer Timothy Oulton was involved in the 2024 interior gastropub upgrade. The pub focuses on locally sourced, seasonal British food. It’s part of Chelsea’s latest transformation - artisan, foodie, expensive, but still fundamentally a pub. Still a place where community gathers.

THE WORLD'S END

Feeling fortified? Good, because we’re off to our final stop, which I’m afraid is not currently a functioning pub. We’ll head back up to The King’s Road and follow this all the way west - down where Chelsea starts to blur into other neighborhoods. 

At 459 The King’s Road, SW10 0LF, we find the site of the former pub known as The World’s End. Sadly, it is currently closed, but thanks to Historic England, the building cannot be demolished. It is preserved because of its Grade II listed status. This tells us that Historic England considers it architecturally significant. And it is. It’s beautiful. 

Londonist indicates that the name isn’t apocalyptic. It’s practical. In the 17th century, this was literally the end of London’s world - the last tavern before open countryside. The last place a traveler could get refreshment before a long journey. The boundary.

CAMRA tells us that Samuel Pepys mentions the tea garden here in his diary. For London’s aristocracy, this was where the city ended. 

The current building is from 1897 - a spectacular Victorian Gin Palace, all ornate turrets and elaborate brickwork. 

Wikipedia tells us that this pub building gave its name to the entire neighborhood.

Fast forward to the 1960s. Chelsea’s bohemian quarter moved west, following artists priced out of the posher parts. The World’s End becomes counterculture epicenter. CAMRA tells us that Rolling Stones rehearsed here in the early 1960s. In 1962, they auditioned Bill Wyman for bass player at The World’s End. Spoiler – he got the gig!

We mentioned Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s punk fashion boutique SEX earlier. It was located close to The World’s End pub at 430 King’s Road. The whole area became a magnet for artists, musicians, and rebels. Westwood’s store sold bondage gear and ripped clothing to young people who wanted to destroy everything polite society stood for.

The same building that once served aristocrats heading to country estates was now serving people tearing down everything those aristocrats represented. Same pub, same location, completely different community, completely different role.

There's a direct musical connection to this area. According to The Clash’s website, Joe Strummer wrote "London Calling" while living beside the River Thames on the World's End Estate in Chelsea, fueling the lyrics' apocalyptic vision and the line,

“London's drowning but I live by the river.”

The World’s End Estate is a brutal collection of 1970s brick social housing towers. The estate became notorious - poverty, crime, social problems. “World’s End” went from “boundary of the city” to “urban dystopia” as reflected in The Clash “London Calling” lyrics. A little way downriver is Cadogan Pier, where the video for "London Calling" was shot one wet night.

Here's what this tells you about Chelsea: this neighborhood has always attracted people who were remaking culture. Pre-Raphaelites reimagining Victorian art. ‘60s designers reimagining fashion. Punk rockers reimagining music and style.

Today, The World's End isn't really a traditional pub anymore. It's been renovated, corporatized, struggling to find a role in modern Chelsea. The interior has been gutted and modernized. The sense of history is harder to feel, but the building still stands as proof of what happened here.

When you visit The World's End now, you're standing where The Stones rehearsed. Where punk happened. Where "London Calling" was inspired. Where Chelsea's counterculture identity was forged.

The pub is the monument to cultural rebellion.

Oh, one more thing! That Oscar Wilde sculpture that puzzled me at the outset? The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s website tells us the artwork is located at Dovehouse Green, King's Road, Chelsea.  

Councilor Kim Taylor-Smith, Deputy Leader, Culture, Economy and Skills said, 

“The Head of Oscar Wilde commemorates the connection between Wilde and Chelsea, where he lived and wrote many of his most famous works, such as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.”

I had no idea! But now you do! 

So, there it is. Five pubs, four of which survive. Five different versions of Chelsea.

The Chelsea Potter reminds us it was once industrial. The Phene and The Cross Keys tell a tale of community activism saving their beloved local pubs, while The Cross Keys proves Chelsea  was an artists' neighborhood. The Pig’s Ear demonstrates survival through gastropub evolution. The World's End documents Chelsea’s counterculture explosion.

Same neighborhood, its storied told through its living rooms – its pubs.

[MUSIC – BUMPER 2]

ACT 3: THE URGENCY

Here's the problem.

This amazing method of reading a city - using pubs as decoder rings - is disappearing.

The British Beer and Pub Association tracks this. Since 2001, Britain has lost over 13,000 pubs. That’s roughly 30 per week for two decades. The Guardian Newspaper reported that in the first half of 2024, fifty pubs a month closed in England and Wales. 

These aren't just businesses failing. They're libraries of local history being erased from the map. When a pub closes, centuries of community memory can disappear overnight.

Why is this happening?

The obvious answers - rising rents and business rates. 

Pubs operate on such thin margins - often just 10-15% profit after expenses according to payment processor “Wonderful”. When property values skyrocket like they have in Chelsea, landlords sell to developers who convert the buildings into flats.

CAMRA shows how this brutal the business rate environment is. Business rates, tied to property values rather than revenue, hit pubs especially hard. A pub building in Chelsea might be worth £2 million as a pub. But as luxury flats? £7 million. The math is hard to ignore. 

But there’s a deeper reason challenging pub survival, and it's about cultural change.

The pub used to be daily infrastructure. You stopped at your local on the way home from work. Not for a big night out - just for a pint, to see who was there, to be part of your community. That regular footfall is what kept pubs economically viable.

But British culture has changed. People drink less. They socialize differently. People gather, commune less. 

Working from home means no commute to punctuate with a pub stop. The pub has shifted from daily ritual to occasional destination - special occasions, weekend plans, scheduled events.

Pub economics depend on the regulars. On predictable footfall. On people who come in whether there's a quiz on or not. 

When that goes away, when the pub becomes something you visit for special occasions rather than part of your weekly routine, the business model breaks.

So yes, the rent is too high, and the business rates are crippling. But the reason landlords can't absorb those costs is because fewer people are coming through the door.

Here's what gets lost when a pub closes.

The obvious thing: a historic building, often beautiful, often architecturally significant, gets converted into flats or demolished. That's a loss for everyone who might have appreciated that building.

The less obvious thing: the neighborhood loses its gathering space. Its living room. The place where community happened spontaneously, where different generations mixed, where the businessman and the builder and the artist all occupied the same space.

You lose the institutional memory. The bartender who's been there twenty years, who knows everyone, who connects people. Gone.

You lose the casual social infrastructure. The place you could just… show up. No reservation, no plan, just walk in and see who's there. That's rarer now. Everything else is transactional, planned, screened.

And for neighborhoods like Chelsea, you lose the physical evidence of what the place used to be. When The Cross Keys faced closure, Chelsea nearly lost its proof that it was once an artists' quarter. When pubs close, the stories they tell - about who lived here, what mattered here, how the community evolved - those stories become harder to access.

Some pubs adapt. The Pig’s Ear became a gastropub. The Phene and The Cross Keys saved by community action. But many don't make it.

Which is exactly why I'm making this show.

Not as nostalgia - "Oh, things were better in the old days." They weren't, necessarily.

But because these places still exist. Right now. You can still visit them. You can still walk into The Cross Keys and sit where Dylan Thomas sat. You can still stand outside The World's End and see where The Stones rehearsed.

These stories are still accessible. Still alive. Still part of the landscape you can actually touch.

I don't know how much longer that will be true.

The economic pressures aren't easing. The cultural shifts are accelerating. More pubs will close. More stories will be locked away in history books instead of being part of living neighborhoods.

Before that happens - before more of these places disappear - I want to take you inside them. Not as museums, but as places you can still visit, still experience, still understand. And as businesses still support, as living pieces of Britain's community infrastructure that are worth experiencing while they're still here.

[MUSIC – BUMPER 3]

ACT 4: HOW THIS WORKS

Here's what Publicity is going to do.

Every episode, we explore one British neighborhood through its pubs. Or we explore a theme across multiple neighborhoods and their pubs. Some pubs get the full treatment - detailed stories, historical context, what they're like to visit today. Others get quick mentions because they're part of the neighborhood's fabric even if they don't have dramatic stories attached.

We’ll mostly be in London - because that's where the density is, where centuries of history are so tightly layered; but not exclusively. Occasionally we'll venture beyond to explore Britain's rich geographic and cultural diversity.

The goal is always the same. By the end of the episode, you’ll understand that neighborhood, or a consistent theme across neighborhoods. Not just history, but personality. What made neighborhoods, what they are now, and where they’re heading.

And critically – you’ll know exactly where to go, what to look for, how to experience it yourself.

Because this is not armchair travel content. This is trip planning. I see your questions on social media groups: 

·       "I'm going to London for five days, which neighborhoods should I prioritize?" 

·       "I'm spending an afternoon in Chelsea, what should I actually see?" 

·       “I’m staying near Paddington Station, what historic pubs do I need to check out?”

·       “I’m heading to Hampstead? How do I get there? What’s there to see?”

Eventually, you'll be glad to hear, this show won't just be me talking at you.

My plan is to add two co-hosts:

·       An American who asks questions that American visitors would ask.

·       A London local who can tell you what these neighborhoods are actually like today, what it costs, what's changing.

·       And then, of course, me, the homesick, Expat. British born, Miami based. An insider who knows the culture. An outsider who's lost touch with the daily reality of living in the UK. 

Three perspectives. We won't always agree, but that's going to make it all the more fun!

Beyond the podcast, I'm building resources on the website. Interactive maps showing exactly where these pubs are. Walking routes connecting them - "Start here, walk this direction, stop at these three pubs, end here." Transportation networks. Which tube lines, which overground lines? What stops are the closest? Historical photos. Blue plaque locations. Practical information you need to actually do these walks yourself.

I want you to listen to an episode, get excited about a neighborhood, pull up the website, download the map, and actually go do it.

Walk into The Cross Keys with the story fresh in your mind. Order a pint, look around, and think, 

"Wow! Dylan Thomas sat here. This is where the community fought to save this place. I'm part of this story now."

That's the point. Not just information, but experience.

The overarching goal? By the time we're done - and this is a multi-year project – you will have a comprehensive guide to understanding Britain through its pubs.

Not just visiting them but understanding what they tell you about the places they serve.

This is Publicity - London By Pub.

Find us at publicitythepodcast.com. 

This has been Expat Andy. Thank you for listening.

Every pub, every neighborhood, has a story to tell, if you know where to look…

[MUSIC – OUTRO]