The Talbot: Progress Report 1

Little over one month ago, the new landlord of The Talbot, Felix, wrote to Brockley Central to explain to readers about his plans for the pub, which is due to re-open in November. He also promised to keep us up-to-date as the rennovation progressed. True to his word, here is Felix's latest update:

I thought I’d give you a quick update since it has now been a month since we started work and things have moved at a great pace. At the moment we are on schedule for opening The Talbot at the beginning of November and barring any major problems we should be on time.

We have removed at least a dozen 12 yard skips of rubble, old pipework, and general building waste and some particularly unsavory carpets from the Talbot. The infrastructure of the building was in very poor condition, so we have reconstructed some internal walls, replaced a fair bit of rotten timber and repaired the main drains to the rear of the pub.

The rebuilding has begun at the top of the building and there are 14 men gradually working their way down. New plumbing, new wiring and new plasterboard throughout means that teams are following each other down from the 2nd floor. Since the trade kitchen and the dining room/function room will be on the 1st floor with a new bar, we are currently working hard to get this into good shape before we head down another floor to the main bar.

Last week I submitted the first of two planning applications that should be on Lewisham’s searchable database this week. The first is an application to separate the house on the left on the Talbot from the pub. In years gone by this has become part of the pub and it is my intention to turn this back into a house and live there myself. All of the space lost by turning the raised room on the left of the pub back into my living room will be regained by opening out the bar area and adding a bar and dining room upstairs.

The second application will be submitted next week and has been made to create an entrance lobby on the right hand side of the pub where the existing door is and to move the front entrance to the centre of the front face of the pub. We will then replace the old gated door on the left with a window to match all of the others. This will make the building accessible to all and comply with current disabled access regulations. We have looked at trying to achieve this internally but a lobby would simply eat up too much space in the bar.

I do hope that these applications will meet with all of your approval when Lewisham send out letters to you. They are only intended to improve the pub and update the building to make it more functional.

On a lighter note, I have managed to salvage the old cocktail sign from the rubble. It will definitely feature in some respect in the new pub. Watch this space.

Many thanks for your time