Viva Brighton Issue #45 November 2016

BITS AND BOBS
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PUB: JW LENNON’S
Painting by Jay Collins
Check out old photos of Brighton and you can see
that before the widening of Edward Street in the
sixties, it was much more like its neighbour St James
Street: narrow, and lined with shops and pubs. James
Gray, the photo archivist, recorded that earlier in
the 20th century ‘one in every three buildings in
Edward Street was a beerhouse’. Now there are just
two, The Jury’s Out and, a bit further up the hill,
JW Lennon’s.
The latter pub was so named in August 2010, when
it was taken over by Drink In Brighton, and given an
Irish-American make-over, with sawdusty wooden
floors and a jumble of Victorian-era decorations, including
a rowing boat on one of the walls. They had
open-mic nights and live bands and huge hotdogs
and attracted a lively crowd of twenty-somethings.
But not enough, presumably, as they sold the operation
on in November 2010 ‘to a bloke called Phil’.
I pop in one late Friday lunchtime, and am told
by the Irish barman they don’t do food; he serves
me the cheapest pint of Kronenbourg I’ve had in
Brighton for several years (£3.50) and I go and sit
down with it, checking out the décor (unchanged
since its DIB days, boat and all) and the clientele
(a couple of old guys reading the paper, a cheerful
chap watching the cricket and a young trio chatting
earnestly about the differences between San Francisco
and Brighton). One of them is brought a pint
of Guinness by said barman, who tells her, proudly,
that ‘it’s been poured as it ought to be poured’. I
realise I’ve blundered, and make a mental note to try
the porter next time.
A sign on the wall tells me the bit of the pub I’m
sitting in used to be a greengrocer’s; the original
pub (which was called the Leconfield Arms until
2010) used to be split in two, with a public bar and
a lounge. It’s hard to imagine this: both must have
been tiny. The far windows must date back to that
period, as ‘private bar’ is written into the elegant
lead-panelled window panes. The pub is first listed
in 1867, named after the then Lord Lieutenant of
Sussex, George Wyndham, Baron of Leconfield,
owner of Petworth House. The little pub would
have been a far cry from the stately mansion:
Edward Street was on the edge of the first Brighton
area to be slum cleared, as early as 1898. Alex Leith
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