I am that rare thing – a Yorkshireman who is delighted to be wrong. Reports of the Bell’s death were exaggerated, despite all the eyore-ish scuttlebutt from some locals. After my gloomy recent post the Twitter faction of East London and City CAMRA made a call to the Bell’s pubco, getting the reassuring news that they were in negotiations with a new tenant. The place was worryingly silent and forlorn for a couple of weeks, but a recent walk past the Bell revealed that the men in hi-viz are back supping their Carling and their Guinness. I’m not sure what they’ll make of the new tenant’s touches – the most visual being romantically lighted candles in all the windows.
One pub that really is very dead indeed is Lincolns (TIW passim), still sat halfway up the High Road like a beached galleon. When the Police kicked the dodgepots out a few years ago, it was mooted that Lincolns might revert to its traditional name of The Elms and become a decent, real-ale boozer – a role since fulfilled by the just-keeps-on-getting-better Red Lion. However, Lincoln’s is getting demolished next month to make way for housing association flats. The old place did have one last hurrah – it was made over as ‘The Taj’ – an exterior set for the filming of The Magnificent Eleven. A rumour that Robert Vaughan was later seen buying a large doner from Leytonstone Kebabish has been difficult to prove.
Ten-Inch Wheels 
Re your first sentence: it is so rare that I would speak to your father about your true parentage…..
Actually it’s still not clear if and when Lincoln’s will be demolished. There has been a first planning application for complete demolition, but it was refused by the council on the grounds that the demolition process would be too disruptive for the neighbours. A second application for a “part demolition” has just been flagged as “invalid”. See 2011/1204/GPDO Demol and 2012/0185/INVALID in the WF Planning Explorer. They probably won’t give up so easily, but for now the building is still standing…
Seeing how hard it can be to get a table reservation at the Red Lion (they were fully booked for lunch on Sunday for example) you’d think there might be space for another decent real-ale venue in the area…. we can only dream, huh?
Thanks for the info, kdote11. Something needs to happen, the old place is visibly deteriorating. Maybe that’s what ‘they’ want, and are just waiting until it’s just a ruin…
I always thought that The Sheepwalk could be a decent pub given a bit of an effort. There’s certainly a demand in Leytonstone.
Looks like that is the plan, yes. In the original application the idea was to leave all the rubble on the site after demolition and put a fence around it.. sad to think the site is probably worth more in that state than it is now with a pretty building on it. Still hoping we’ll one day see a For Sale sign on the pub again, even if it is then converted into flats.
Never been to the Sheepwalk, but it does seem to have a lot of potential, indeed! Is it worth going in for a pint already these days?
In my experience – definitely not! Ticks nearly every box on my ‘bad pubs’ checklist (starting with No Real Ale)