Kinks' shine sell-off sends shockwaves across world

07 March 2007

NEWS that the shrine to legendary rock band The Kinks in their local pub could be sold off to the highest bidder has caused shockwaves among fans around the world.

The Journal revealed last week that the new tenants of The Clissold Arms, Fortis Green, Muswell Hill, the site of the first performance by brothers Ray and Dave Davies of The Kinks, are planning to turn it into a fashionable gastropub and distance themselves from the pub's historic links.

Fans have been reeling in shock at the possibility that the collection of memorabilia - including a collection of vinyl and photographs donated by fans - could be scattered across the globe if the tenants choose to sell it off.

Tenancy laws mean that Caroline Jones and Hugh O'Boyle, directors of Brighton-based Jobo Developments Ltd, own all the fixtures and fittings in the pub, including the collection.

In response to the news, the co-editor of Norwegian fan website WhyKinks, Kai Armann, who makes a pilgrimage to the pub every year, this week started an internet campaign dubbed Save The Clissold Arms to try to get the display preserved in its current home.

On the internet message board of Dave Davies' website, one member calling themselves Terisong wrote: "This is so sad! Dave [Davies] must know about this! It's sickening to think the new owners could possibly auction off this sentimental and priceless memorabilia on eBay or any other place. This is terrible! We need to stop this from happening if at all possible."

Another wrote: "I wonder if they [the Davies brothers] will offer to buy the memorabilia from the new owners and display them at Konk [Ray's recording studio in Crouch End] or somewhere else.

"I hope the new owners change their mind as lots of fans from all over the world make an annual pilgrimage to the pub and it would generate business for them."

Both Dave and Ray Davies are aware of the news, but neither had commented as the Journal went to press.

The pub, which was in the first wave of the Campaign For Real Ale (CAMRA)'s Pubs In Time awards scheme last year, is due to reopen as an upmarket food-focussed pub in the early summer.

Ironically, the man behind CAMRA's Pubs In Time scheme, Professor Simon Davies, begins to lobby the government to protect culturally historic pubs by law, the same way listed buildings are.

He is reported as saying: "We protect the architecture of buildings where nothing has occurred of any significance whatsoever, yet it seems to be OK to vandalise, destroy and obliterate places which shaped our country and, in some cases, shaped the world.