Real Ale Pubs in SE London 1970s-1980s

The years immediately following CAMRA’s, and our branch’s, formation saw a huge increase in the availability of traditional cask beer. Across London the proportion of pubs serving cask rose from only 10% in 1974 to almost three quarters by 1986. The picture in our branch area followed a similar pattern, seeing over a five-fold increase in the number of real ale pubs over the same period.

Where data is available for the years listed, the table below details the total number of pubs in SE London, the number of those pubs selling cask beer, the percentage these pubs represent of total pubs, and for comparison the percentage across Greater London as a whole.

Year	Total Pubs	Real Ale Pubs	Real Ale Pubs %	Gtr London Real Ale %
1974	-	97	-	10%
1975	-	100	-	-
1976	-	125	-	15%
1977	-	174	-	-
1979	-	209	-	25%
1981	881	319	36%	44%
1982	884	387	44%	54%
1983	885	497	56%	70%
1984	885	528	60%	72%
1986	888	548	62%	74%
2026	551	295	54%	-

London Real Ale Availability in 1980s

Availability varied considerably, with the greatest concentrations being in central London (City and West End) followed by the leafy outer suburbs. Many areas within the London postal districts continued to have much patchier availability.

For example, in 1981 the City, West End and outer SW London all had over 60% of pubs serving cask beer, whereas in contrast E London had only 28%. Our branch area sat towards the lower end of this range at 36%.

By 1986 all areas of London had significantly higher proportions of pubs serving cask beer but an uneven distribution remained. The City, West End and outer SW London now had over 90% of their pubs serving cask, whereas E London had 54%, followed by our branch at 62%.

The contrast with the position in the early 21st century is stark. Whilst the proportion of our branch’s pubs serving real ale initially held up reasonably well when compared to 1986, more recently there has been a material decline to just over 50%. The total number of pubs in our branch has seen a huge fall since the 1980s. Once the more recent emergence of new types of venues classed as pubs is stripped out (eg. brewery tap-rooms, micropubs, bottle-only venues, etc) depressingly the true number of lost pubs will be higher still.

Data Sources

The table above has mainly been compiled from the 1970s CAMRA Real Beer In London guides together with the various annual summary reports produced in the 1980s by Roger Warhurst and published in London Drinker magazine.

For consistency across the two data sources, we have used the totals for the combined 'SE' postal districts as this closely resembles our current branch area. Note that, as CAMRA branches in London are now generally aligned with local authority boundaries, the SE20 (Anerley) and SE25 (South Norwood) postal districts are not part of our branch but they are included in the numbers reported above (excluding 2026).

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