Kilburn & The High Roads
Ok, so this post touches on a couple of things, partly about a trip we recently took up town and the other about the late great Ian Dury and his first band aptly matching the post name.
Recently one Saturday we decided, as it was so nice to head up to London and have a look at an Antiques shop in Lisson Grove (not far from Marylebone). It's not a place we have visited much in the past so my knowledge of the area was a little limited, thanks to Mr Google I managed to work out a route.
Markets 'n' Bargains
We headed toward Bond Street and then just outside Selfridges caught the 139 bus up to Lisson Grove and jumped out at Church Street Market which on Saturday was buzzing with punters all trying to score bargains on clothes, fruit and veg and anything else they happened to be selling. Mrs A managed to bag a nice looking dress for a reasonable price and we wandered through the market checking out the lovely smell of food stalls and the array of clothing, shoes etc.
Antiques 'n' Koi Carp
We hit Alfie's Antiques which is an enormous shop containing loads of antique and retro stuff from yesteryear (a lot of which we couldn't afford or even have the space for if we could afford!). It is a cracking shop with a rabbit warren of different antique shops within it selling art, jewellery, militaria, furniture, knick-knacks and retro clothes. It also has the most amazing big fish pond slap back in the middle of it with some fab looking Koi Carp. We had a good hunt around and headed up several flights of stairs to more and then hit upon a seller who was well into her retro clothes and style and even better had a taste for some good old school music and we had a long chat with her discussing the old days of clubs and pubs with music in (either dj's or bands). She pointed us to a place in Kilburn which has old skool r&b style music on Sunday's so perhaps next time we are up there we can check it out and perhaps post something on this site about it!
Pubs 'n' Hotels
After finishing up in antique land we decided to head towards Kilburn to check out some shops and pubs along route. We headed off up the road to Maida Vale and along the lovely tree lined roads with some huge houses along the route and turned off towards Warwick Avenue and along Warrington Crescent where we hit The Warrington Hotel, it was only about a 20 minute walk and the pub/hotel is a huge and beautiful building, you can catch some pictures of it at the website.
We looped round back onto Maida Vale and eventually left W9 behind and headed into NW6 and Kilburn the walk took about 30 minutes in all from the pub, the place itself is hustle and bustle loads of shops and eateries, we dropped into a few charity shops along the way and finally hit the second beautiful old pub of the day, this one equally as big and grand called the Black Lion which is described as a boutique hotel/pub. They serve some lovely independent brewed beers. Following that we hopped the bus back down to Bond Street along Abbey Road passing by the recording studio used by a certain 60's band.
Kilburn 'n' The Highroads
Kilburn and music seem to go hand in hand, you can catch some of the history of the venues at westhampsteadlife.com. As described in the article it is pretty neat that Ian Drury named his first band after the street.
Although the band Kilburn & The High Roads may not have had much mainstream success they certainly paved the way for the pub rock and punk rock scene as mentioned in my previous post at the link. In terms of pub culture catch their track 'Mumble Rumble & The Cocktail Rock' at the link.
Leaving you for this post with one of the Kilburn's little gems Rough Kids at the link. And if you fancy a bit more of Mr. Dury or Stiff Records catch the link in this site here Razzle In My Pocket...
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Photo by Tanya Barrow on Unsplash