Returning from Andalucia has meant a bit of catching up with things here. That includes a bit of televison. So we settled down to watch the last episode in the recent series of Who Do You Think You Are? A bloke called Mark Wright.
Now, the only Mark Wright that I'd heard of who could possibly be considered a 'celebrity' is the former Liverpool, Derby County and England central defender. It wasn't him but some television 'personality' who, it seems, is also a former footballer. He didn't quite match the heights of his namesake, with the highlight of his senior career being spending the 2005-6 season with Southend United, for whom he made zero appearances. His main claim to fame is being one of the original cast members of the reality TV show, TOWIE, which I think is an acronym for The Only Way Is Excess.
During the programme (in which, by a strange coincidence, we discover that Mark's ancient rellies hailed from Andalucia) there was mention of a Gorleston Street in Whitechapel. Yes, Gorleston Street. Gorleston! The place of my birth and home for the first couple of decades of my life. My curiosity was stirred. The 1875 Town (?) Plan of London produces a Goulston Street in Whitechapel, but no Gorleston. Mr. Google threw up the transcript of the proceedings of an Old Bailey trial from 5th December 1911 (In case anybody is interested, the complete transcript is here, starting about two-thirds of the way down the page.) where one William Isaacs, a boot clicker (whatever one of those was) was a witness in the trial of a number of individuals for riot. Isaacs' address is given as Brunswick Buildings, Gorleston Street. Further digging provides the information from surveyoflondon.org that Brunswick Buildings were "an extensive 1880s development of artisans' dwellings" which "occupied the south side of New Goulston Street and the west side of Goulston Street south almost to Whitechapel High Street." Census records also give them on Goulston Street. It seems that a doodlebug managed to remove a significant proportion of these artisans'dwellings sixty years later. It also appears that Gorleston Street in Whitechapel exists only in cockney pronounciation - and its transcription.
However, during my digging, Mr. Google told me that there is a Gorleston Street in London. In W14. In Hammersmith, Fulham or West Kensington. I'm not certain which as I've seen all three applied to it. Of course, I had a peek on Street View and what should I find on the street corner? Yes, a pub. A boarded up pub. The Live & Let Live. Back in the mid 1970s I had cause to visit west London and sank a pint or three, mainly in Shepherd's Bush and Hammersmith, occasionally venturing further afield, but I never visited this establishment and now I probably never will.
The Live & Let Live stood at 35/37 North End Road, on the corner of Gorleston Street, in West Kensington, or Fulham, or Hammersmith, although early records have its address as 8 Cumberland Place. The earlist record that I have found is from 1871 when Irishman Daniel Donovon is there as a Beer House Keeper. He's still there ten years later .
Like an octopus or chameleon the Live & Let Live could change colour and did so quite frequently. Unlike the octopus or chameleon its chromatic changes don't seem to have it helped it to survive.
From Mr. Google's imagery it appears that this Greene King pub became a bygone boozer in 2015 or 2016. A few licks of paint and even a brief spell as the Pickled Newt couldn't keep it alive. What fate has in store for it I don't know. I do know that there was a planning application submitted in December 2018 for the "demolition of the existing building and the erection of a replacement part two, part four storey building including further excavation and enlargement of the existing basement to include a new lightwell fronting Gorleston Street elevation comprising of commercial unit (flexible use class A1-A4) at basement and part of ground floor level, 1 x studio, 6 x 1 bedroom and 1 x 2 bedroom self-contained flats at first, second, third and part of ground floor level." At the time of writing (October 2019) its satus is "Pending Consideration".
Why can't folks just live and let live?