The Spice of Life is a pub at Cambridge Circus in London's Charing Cross Road. The pub was founded as The George & Thirteen Cantons[1] in or before 1759,[2] and later became The Scots Hoose. By 1975 it had been renamed The Spice of Life.[3]
| The Spice of Life | |
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.jpg) The Spice of Life in 2012 | |
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| General information | |
| Coordinates | 51°30′54″N 0°07′19″W / 51.5149873°N 0.1220735°W |
As the Scots Hoose in the 1950s and 1960s, the pub had one of Britain's most celebrated folk clubs in its upstairs room,[4] run by Bruce Dunnet,[5] that featured some of the greatest names of the folk revival, such as Bert Jansch, Al Stewart, Davey Graham, Ralph McTell, Roy Harper,[6] Sandy Denny,[7] Ewan MacColl[8] and The Young Tradition.[5] The club operated under various names, including "The Young Tradition".[3]
In the 1970s and beyond the pub was regularly frequented by members of many rock groups including; The Stranglers, Buzzcocks, Stiff Little Fingers, Sex Pistols, Spandau Ballet, The Faces, UFO even the comedy group The Rutles. Film Directors including Jim Parsons, James Russell, Alan G Parker and Don Letts have also been regular visitors since the mid-nineties.
Members of the Monty Python team have also been among the pubs regulars over the years.
The pub features as a location in Ben Aaronovitch’s novel Moon Over Soho, part of the “Rivers of London” series.
References
edit- ^ Larwood, Jacob; John Camden Hotten (1951) [1866]. English inn signs: being a revised and modernized version of History of signboards. Chatto and Windus. p. 278. OCLC 785385.
- ^ Committee for the Survey of the Memorials of Greater London (1966). Survey of London, Volume 33. University of London for the London County Council. p. 205. OCLC 53051349.
- ^ a b Laing, Dave; et al. (1975). The Electric muse: the story of folk into rock. Methuen. pp. 89–90. ISBN 978-0-413-31860-2.
- ^ Dallas, Karl (September–October 1999). "A Celebration of Peter Bellamy". The Living Tradition. No. 34. Retrieved 9 October 2009.
- ^ a b "Obituaries: Bruce Dunnet". The Independent. 23 March 2002. Retrieved 7 October 2009.[dead link]
- ^ Brocken, Michael (2003). The British folk revival, 1944-2002. Ashgate Publishing. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-7546-3282-5.
- ^ Larkin, Colin (1995). The Guinness encyclopedia of popular music, Volume 2. Guinness. p. 135. ISBN 978-1-56159-176-3.
- ^ Harker, David (1985). Fakesong: the manufacture of British "folksong" 1700 to the present day. Open University Press. p. 236. ISBN 978-0-335-15066-3.