Rebuilt around 1890 but closing just c.20 short years later it is no wonder this mysterious corner pub didn’t survive far into the twentieth century.

Set back from arterial roads in the warrens of labyrinth-like compact streets you’d have to really understand the local landscape to even know of its existence. That far back in time local pubs really were only for local people as most Londoners (and particularly poor Cockneys) lived and worked within a few tight miles – their horizons were very narrow. Businesses didn’t have any of the reach or pull that we see on social media and within the technological world of today and with scores of rival public houses, The Kinder likely closed due to saturation.

Every face that drank here would likely be known to all other drinkers present and harks back to a time when pubs were very much the cornerstone of the community. I can’t help but wonder if it reopened now, due to its dark forgotten backstreet location, if it would have a certain quirky feel and could survive as a profitable business. The chances of that happening of course are non-existence after conversion to residential over a century ago.

I first encountered the pub doing urbex a dozen years or so ago and was instantly drawn to it. Very little information is known about the building and it’s almost secret past that will never be discovered, made it even more exciting and begged so many questions never to be answered. That thirst and quest for perceived unobtainable knowledge of former punters and the lives they led is a huge element of what doing LPE is about. Perhaps it is because my present day reality has no old world glamour or mystique and I keep pounding the backstreets in the vain hope of possibly discovering some.

Nobody in living memory drank in this pub and the stories of its existence and the lives and anecdotes of her victuallers and customers have long been taken to the grave. It now stands as just bricks and mortar; almost a tomb for their erased memories. A chamber of echoes from the past filled with the ghosts we will all eventually become.