a House History

An Introduction

At the corner of Dorset Street and Kendrick Place, just off the hustle and bustle of Baker Street, sits The Barley Mow. Said to be the oldest in Marylebone, the pub is steeped in history in an area of London that has changed dramatically over the last 230 odd years.

Dorset Street was originally laid out on land leased from the Portman Estate. William Kendall, a timber merchant turned builder was responsible for Nos 1-8, under 99-year leases commencing 25th March 1789. Of these houses only Nos 2-3 and 6-8 survive.

The Barley Mow at No. 8 was built in 1791 and is now Grade II* listed. The interior, consisting of the main bar and a small snug at the rear, retains its original matchboard panelling and, most notably, a pair of late 19th-century panelled drinking booths, once commonplace in public houses but now an exceptionally rare survival. As such, like the building itself, they are now listed.

Early History

Marylebone was once covered with forest and marshland as part of the great forest of Middlesex. In the Domesday Book of 1086, the area consisted of two manors: to the east lay the manor of Tyburn and to the west the manor of Lilleston or Lilestone.

The Portman family acquired much of the Manor of Lilestone in 1532 when Sir William Portman, Lord Chief Justice to Henry VIII, bought a leasehold of 270 acres of land, later converted to freehold in 1554. 

At that time the area north of Oxford Street, then named ‘the road to Uxbridge’, was open country of fields, hedges and trees. There were few buildings, other than the Church of Mary-le-Bourne, some scattered houses, the manor house and the gallows at Tyburn. Arable land extended over what is now Cavendish Square and cattle grazed on pasture that would become Wigmore Street and Portman Square.

Two hundred years later John Rocque’s famous 1746 map of London shows that the Portman land was still undeveloped. Marylebone Lane, shown to the east, wound its way to the village of that name, and the Marylebone Burying Ground, now the Paddington Street Gardens, was used as a cemetery from 1731 to 1814. The manor house had been converted into a school for young gentlemen in 1703 and its grounds became the Marylebone Pleasure Gardens, marked on Rocque’s map, which were much patronised by the residents of the new Cavendish Square area from the 1720s. 

Development of The Portland Estate

The Portman family was keen to follow the successes of Mayfair and the Harley-Cavendish estate, the latter of which had started development in 1717 and remained somewhat isolated north of the disreputable Tyburn Road (Oxford Street). 

The opening of the New Road (Marylebone Road) in 1756, to provide a route to the City bypassing the West End, provided the impetus for further development and had considerable influence on the growth of this part of London.

Henry William Portman succeeded to the estate in 1761 and laid out designs for Portman Square which was developed between 1764 and 1784. The most prominent residence, Home House at No. 20, was built in the 1770s by James Wyatt and Robert Adam for Elizabeth, Countess of Home. 

Building began on Manchester Square a stone’s throw east in 1776, with the Duke of Manchester’s house on the north side, which became the residence of the Spanish Ambassador. It was remodelled by Richard Wallace in 1872 and is presently called Hertford House and contains the Wallace Collection Art Gallery.

Chronological History of 8 Dorset Street 

1793 – 1820

Dorset Street is first mentioned in the parish ratebooks in 1791, at which time it was noted that there were ‘several houses in building’. The Barley Mow as a Public House would appear to open its doors in early 1793, when James Jacobs became the first publican and resident.

London breweries started buying up public houses in large numbers in the 1880s but until then most publicans held their pubs on long leases from non-brewery landlords and quite a few were freeholders. 

James Jacobs most probably held an under-lease or was a tenant. Many publicans moved on from pub to pub quite frequently, which tended to be the pattern at The Barley Mow.

Jacobs remained landlord for around five years before moving further down the street to the Stag at No. 29 in 1798. His place was taken by James Hannaford, and a further three landlords followed until 1820.

Drink played a large part in the culture of every class in 18th century London. Business was punctuated with alcohol, whether among merchants or servant maids sending out for their ‘pot of porter’ to ease the day’s work, and not least because London water was of dubious quality. Nor was it necessary to come to the pub, which might send out an alehouse boy to supply people at their place of work. It was not uncommon for a working man to consume at least six pints throughout the day!

1821 – 1839 

John Mitcham, the new landlord of The Barley Mow, arrived in early 1821 for about four years.

Again the turnover of landlords was quick and the pub had another two before William Enock arrived with his wife Mary and two young children in early 1830.  Enock died aged thirty-seven in January 1832, followed shortly afterwards in April by their baby Frederick. Mary Enock continued to run The Barley Mow by herself for a further seven years, before moving to a pub in Tottenham Court Road.

1840 – 1865

John Parker took over as landlord of The Barley Mow in 1841, following Thomas Edwards who had performed the role for a year.

On the night of the first census in April 1841, No. 8 was occupied by the publican John Parker, his brother Thomas, employed as a painter, and Mary Parker who was either a sister or married to one of them – the 1841 census gives limited details and does not specify marital status. 

At the time of the 1841 census, neighbours included Charles Babbage who lived and worked at No. 1 Dorset Street from 1829 until his death in 1871. Sometimes referred to as ‘the father of computing’, he was the inventor of a machine for calculating and printing mathematical tables. Babbage loathed street music and noise. He calculated that his working power had been reduced by twenty-five percent from the noise of street traffic and congestion. He campaigned for the passage of an Act of Parliament, known as Babbage’s Act, aimed at reducing unlicensed street activity, which the Act identified as a nuisance. 

He cannot have been popular on Dorset Street, as some of his neighbours hired musicians to play outside his windows. Writing in a long pamphlet called Street Nuisances (1864) he described the persecution to which he had been subjected in his once peaceful Marylebone home:

‘Many years before, I had purchased a house in a very quiet locality... (but) the neighbourhood became changed: coffee shops, beer shops, and lodging houses filled the adjacent small streets. The character of the new population may be inferred from the taste they exhibit for the noisiest and most discordant music.’ 

Neighbours complaining about the noise outside their central London homes is clearly not a new thing on Dorset Street!

A new landlord arrived at the Barley Mow in 1848. Having formerly been at the Wheatsheaf in Upper Marylebone Street, George Kidner was in his early forties and recently widowed. At the time of the 1851 census, Kidner’s sons George and Edward, aged nineteen and fifteen respectively, were assisting their father at the pub. The youngest child Maria was seven. There were two servants and also three lodgers: a butler, a cow keeper and a carpenter.

In May 1853 the pub’s licence was transferred to William George Bradley, who was followed by two further landlords in fairly quick succession.

Henry Anthony took over in 1861 for about three years, at which time The Barley Mow was advertised as a ‘tavern’ providing accommodation and food. 

The Barley Mow also continued to be used by various associations, such as the Manchester Unity of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (a Friendly Society), which met at the pub and kept its Rules and Benefits book at the bar. Another was the French Polishers’ Trade Association.

Another Landlord arrived in 1864 for a year or two. Kingsland Harris was originally from Sandwich in Kent. His family consisted of his wife Sarah and four children, and he employed two general servants, a potman and a barmaid.

1866 – 1882

Two more landlords came and went, before the arrival of Veere Woodman in 1870. Aged forty, his wife Sarah was twenty-five, and their three children were all under six. The family left the pub in 1873.

Another of the landlords in the 1870s, George Pummell was formerly a coachman, aged thirty and already a widower.

By 1881 the landlord was James Cooper, who lived at the pub with his wife Maud and young son. In February 1882, after about a year as landlord, James Cooper was declared bankrupt.

1882 – 1899

The lease on The Barley Mow was renewed on 26th October 1882 for a term of twenty-five years, for the sum of £1,750. The purchasers were Messrs. W.B. Sandeman and others, who were part of the Cannon Brewery Company. At the same time the brewery bought the Stag at No. 29. By 1895, when it registered as a limited liability company, the brewery owned public houses.

The 1882 lease floor plan shows the layout of the main bar, which was divided into smaller areas. Inside work and an update to the drainage was carried out by the brewery in December 1891. It would seem likely that the pub acquired its ground floor timber and glass frontage at the same time, as well as the pair of panelled drinking boxes which still remain to this day. 

The fashion for small compartments was at its height in the years around 1890. They were compared at the time to the similar arrangement in pawnbrokers’ shops, which was perhaps their inspiration. The boxes soon became ubiquitous in Victorian pubs, allowing drinkers privacy or to mingle exclusively with their social equals. But from the late 1890s, bars gradually became larger and larger and fewer and fewer, until by the 1950s fashion had come back full circle to the one-bar pub. As a result, very few ‘booths’ have survived, and the ones at The Barley Mow are now listed as a result.

In the 1880s the turnover of landlords was as rapid as ever. This was evidently also the case elsewhere, the Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette in 1889 considering a five-year-stretch ‘a long term for this ever shifting age’. Franklin Harbett followed four landlords in the 1880s, and at the time of the 1891 census he was recorded with his wife Annie, their young daughter, Annie’s brother, as well as a potman and servant living in.

1900 – 1918

At the turn of the 20th century Arthur Peddie was publican of The Barley Mow, from 1893 to 1910. At the time of the 1901 census Peddie was living in three rooms in Hampstead with his wife Eleanor and young daughter Nellie. Two rooms were occupied by Peddie’s father John and his mother Harriett. Eleanor Peddie died in 1907 aged thirty-one, and Arthur and his daughter Nellie came to live at the pub.

William Allen was the next landlord in 1911, who lived at the pub with his wife Harriet, her two children and her mother.

A new publican arrived in 1917. Christina Lower was aged forty-one and a widow. Her husband Johan Adam Lower had been landlord of a pub in Whitechapel. He had first married Christina’s sister who had died in 1897. 

Johan and Christina were married the following year in Heligoland, a German archipelago in the North Sea – at that time it was illegal in Britain to marry a deceased wife’s sister. Two children, Ernest and Christina, were born in 1899 and 1902 – there were three surviving children from Johan’s first marriage.

After Johan’ death in 1915, Christina was obliged to apply for a Certificate of Naturalisation. Johan’s two sons, Jacob and Charles, both served in France, as did Christina’s own son Ernest.

1919 – 1927

Christina Lower continued as publican and lived there until 1923 with her stepson/nephew Charles, as well as her own children Ernest and Tina. Her other stepson Jacob had married in 1914 and during the war his wife Amanda and two young sons also lived at the Barley Mow.

There was a brief interlude between 1923-24 when Henry Panter was landlord, but the licence was then passed back to Mrs. Lower in January 1925 for a further two years.

1928 - 1939

The new landlord of The Barley Mow, Harry Archer, arrived in 1927 for about three years.

In 1930 Alfred Talfourd and his wife Ellen took over, along with their daughter. Alfred served with the Royal Artillery for twenty-one years, retiring with the rank of Sergeant-Major. The Talfourds moved to Tunbridge Wells in 1932.

In 1934 the publican of The Barley Mow was George Walker, whose wife Nellie and family would live at the pub for some thirty years.

1946 – 1968

George and Nellie moved away during or immediately after the war, and the pub was then run by their son Clarence and his wife Gladys. Gladys is no longer listed at the pub after 1949 and her death could not be traced. At around this time George Walker died and his widow Nellie moved back to the pub. Clarence died aged fifty-nine in December 1962 and his mother probably two years later.

There were a further two resident landlords until 1967.

The death of the 7th Viscount Portman in 1948 resulted in a demand of death duties in excess of £6 million and a large part of the London estate was sold to help pay them.

The properties on the north side of Dorset Street were sold in November 1952, and the Cannon Brewery purchased the freehold of The Barley Mow at this time.

In October and November 1967 planning applications were made to the council by the owners Ind Coope (London) Ltd for alterations to the pub and the conversion of the first, second and third floors into self-contained flats with an entrance at the rear. At that time the managers of the pub lived in a flat on the first floor, and separate rooms in the rest of the property were let out.

The conversion of the Barley Mow was carried out in 1968.

The 2000s

By June 2000, 8 Dorset Street was owned by Punch Retail (DevCo) which had offices on the second floor. The company owned various pubs and restaurants, primarily in London.

An application was made to the council that June for refurbishment of the ground floor and basement of the pub, as well as the three flats. The application included the erection of a glazed corridor and stairs adjacent to 1 Kenrick Place to provide access to the flats and alterations to the ground floor window on Kenrick Place. The application was denied.

The pub closed in January 2007 and sat empty for 3 years until 2010 when Sean Martin, who also owned the then Northumberland Arms on Goodge Street, took over the lease. 

A troika of actors, Caolan Byrne, Eugene O’Hare and the late Alex Beckett ran the day-to-day operations for him in between their acting work. 

Over the next two years, the pub would become home to many a ‘resting’ actor and artist, something it continues to do this day, seeing Olivier and BAFTA Award Winners, future filmmakers, playwrights and even a certain trailblazing Dr Who in the form of Jodie Whittaker pull pints behind the centuries old bar.

In 2012 the lease of the pub was purchased by the Waldegrave family, who coincidentally then owned the three flats above. Harriet Waldegrave, the youngest child of Lord William and Lady Caroline, became the official landlord and Caolan Byrne continued to run the pub in between his acting work. 

That same year, one of Caolan’s old RADA buddies Will Norris came to work at the pub, and eventually the two co-ran the pub for the Waldegrave family, until 2016 when Caolan left to move back to his native Ireland. Will continued to run the pub as the sole manager. 

In autumn 2019 the freehold of the building was purchased by Simon Bridbury.

In March 2020, the Covid-19 Pandemic eventually forced the government to close pubs before the country went into a series of extended lockdowns, and when pubs were able to open their doors, they were under such severe restrictions that up until early 2022 many pubs’ futures hung in the balance.

Throughout this period Simon Bridbury enabled The Barley Mow to survive by stopping the rent due, which allowed the business as a whole to just about cling on while many other pubs closed their doors for good.

A New Chapter – 2022 onwards

In January 2022, as the country stepped out of the shadows of the Omicron strain of COVID, businesses in the Marylebone area started to take their first tentative steps back to the office. For the first time in nearly two years there appeared to be the slightest glimmer of light at the end of the pandemic tunnel for the hospitality industry.

At a similar time, the Waldegrave siblings were starting to migrate from the flats above the pub, having expanded their individual families with various respective children.

Having now run the pub for 6 years solo, backed by 12 locals and regulars , Will made an offer to buy the lease from the Waldegrave family. Bookending a decade of their ownership, it seemed fitting to pass the torch to the person who had steered the ship for them through both the good times and the recent bad of COVID.

As such, a new chapter for this historic pub began!