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Type:
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Bar
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Location:
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United Kingdom, London
33 Kentish Town Road
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Contacts:
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Tel: 020 7284 0562
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Then:
The Devonshire Arms is a public house in London, UK serving an international clientele drawn from a variety of alternative subcultures including Industrial, Metal, Punk and Cyber, although its décor is gothic and this is the subculture with which it is widely identified.
The Devonshire Arms is the longest surviving Goth pub in London and has remained a focal point for the city's alternative scene for many years.
Located in Camden Town, a vibrant area of North London famous for its alternative shops and markets, the pub attracts a mix of London regulars plus many visitors from elsewhere in the UK and overseas. The Devonshire Arms is widely known in alternative circles outside the UK because of the London scene's notably cosmopolitan composition. For many new arrivals to the scene it served as an important location for initial social networking.
Its significance is further enhanced by its proximity to several live music and club venues - notably Slimelight in the nearby area of Islington. Slimelight claims to be the longest-running goth nightclub in the world and its unusually permissive opening hours (it runs until 7:30am) make the Devonshire Arms a popular choice for pre-club drinks.
The pub is situated at 33 Kentish Town Road on the corner of Hawley Crescent - approximately 3 minutes' walk from Camden Town Underground station on the Northern Line. It is adjacent to the headquarters of MTV Europe.
It occupies a 3-storey mock Tudor building with black beams and white plaster rendering. The public bar is on the ground floor.
One of the bar's defining characteristics used to be its goth and alternative dress code - which was routinely enforced. Customers who did not specifically conform to this style were generally expected to observe an all-black (or near to) minimum.
Stated Aim & Criticisms:
On a practical level, the dress code existed to deter trouble-makers. Its purpose was not the exclusion of persons whose style of appearance would somehow detract from a gothic ambience - although its application was frequently misinterpreted as such.
As a point of principle, it was regularly cited (often by goths themselves) as being incongruous with the scene's professed axiom of nonconformity. This is a specific instance of a widely observed paradox regarding the alternative scene as a whole - and, in particular, its members' tendency to exhibit conformist tendencies.
This argument, however, does not acknowledge the dress code's stated and overriding purpose - which, as noted, was the preservation of the pub's hassle-free ethos - rather than the imposition of an arbitrary style.
Music played in the pub includes Darkwave, Gothic rock, Trad Goth and EBM. Futurepop, Industrial, Punk and Synthpop are also featured.
There are DJs some evenings - sometimes accompanied by film or music videos. There are also regular themed nights catering for styles such as J-Rock (Japanese Rock), Ambient Music and Deathrock - plus nights dedicated to particular groups or artists (e.g. David Bowie)
Occasionally there are one-off, non-music events catering for the more esoteric tastes within the scene - for example, a night celebrating the horror fiction of H. P. Lovecraft and an evening dedicated to dragon poetry.
Now:
As taken from http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub1588.html
It's official: Goth is out, Rock is in . The November 2007 buy-out of the Dev means it is now a Hobgoblin pub owned by Wychwood Brewery, although the name has thankfully not (yet?) changed. This has injected a much-needed dose of ale into a pub previously best known for snakebite & blacks and dodgy Guinness. There are now three drought ales plus bottled beers to choose from, in addition to the usual standard fizzy yellow drinks. It is fair to say that, of all drinkers, Goths and Rockers should appreciate the darker side of beer the most. While there are probably some people who lament the passing of the old Dev, we were heartened by the more welcoming policies. It's not just the drink that has broadened: the dress code has relaxed as well. It remains to be seen what impact this will have on the evening entertainment (which goes on until 1am on Fridays and Saturdays), but during the day there was still the same recognisable alternative crowd. Some of the more extreme decorations have gone, but it is by no means a redesign and the pub still feels as 'historic' as ever. And that is important in a world that increasingly swims in ready-made Ikea-type false fronted pubs; we must preserve the best in our traditional (and alternative) boozers.
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