Time, Marx and Engels, please: Historic pub under threat

Britain's drinking heritage is vanishing rapidly as historic pubs, many of them masterpieces of period design as well as the hub of a community, are converted to housing or demolished.

Losses have shot up from the closure of 30 pubs a month nationwide three years ago to 56 a month now. The future of a further 1,300 is uncertain. After years of concern at the demise of rural pubs, 80 per cent of these closures are in urban areas, and London especially is suffering, says the Campaign for Real Ale.

Many of these pubs are listed buildings, such as the Crescent in Salford, where Marx and Engels used to drink, which is Grade-II listed.

Pub closures have gathered pace in tune with soaring house prices, competition from supermarkets selling cheap beer and the widespread switch in pub ownership from breweries to property-holding companies, known as pubcos.

The Nell Gwynne, off the Strand and London's oldest pub, is under threat because the owners are not renewing the 14-year lease for landlords Jerry and Patricia Murphy. They fear the owners want to turn offices above into flats, with the 17th-century pub as an entrance hall.

For sale: pub with a proletarian past

Friedrich Engels started drinking with Karl Marx at the Red Dragon, now known as the Crescent, soon after it opened in Salford in the 1860s. By day Engels oversaw his father's mill in Weaste, Salford. At night he would tour the slums, gathering evidence for his seminal work, 'The Condition of the Working Class in England'. As often as he could afford, Marx would visit from London, and the two would discuss the flaws of capitalism over a pint.

Andrew Johnson