First the good news: the Cross Keys, where local people, the Chelsea Society, local CAMRA members and others fought a long hard campaign to frustrate property baron Andrew Bourne's attempt 2 years ago to turn it into a £10million residential complex with a swimming pool, has been sold!
The even better news: new owners developer Parsons Green Land plans to re-open the pub albeit with the upper floors converted to flats.
This historic pub has been one of the key hubs of the local community - economically (it brings business in and provides employment) and socially. For over 300 years it has been a place where local people from all walks of life have met, socialised, cried, laughed and chatted. Locals who have enjoyed the conviviality of the Cross Keys since 1708 have included drinkers, artists, poets, authors and other luminaries like Dylan Thomas, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, J.M.W. Turner, James Whistler, William Holman Hunt and John Singer Sargent as well as George Meredith, Thomas Carlyle, and Agatha Christie.
But The Cross Keys is much more than just a place where local people have come together. It has been the heartbeat of the community: traditionally christenings, birthday parties, wedding receptions and wakes have all been held here. The pub has been the regular meeting place for local community groups; church congregations always met here on Sundays.
The Cross Keys is where the community comes together.
Like across Greater London and the whole country, we have lost enough pubs already: Of the 14 pubs that once existed in the Cheyne Conservation Area only four remain ...... CAMRA West London chairman Les Maggs said
"CAMRA shared the relief that not only has the pub been saved as a critical part of the local economy but that it will continue to play its vital role at the heart of the local community, and pledged the branch's whole-hearted support."
Mike Benner, CAMRA Chief Executive, said
"It is great news that the historic Cross Keys pub is to be reopened and has not gone the way of so many of our valued community pubs - which once closed are often lost forever. Pubs are an essential part of Britain's cultural heritage and it is clear from the support of the surrounding community how important it is the Cross Keys remains a pub in the future."
We will keep you posted on developments at the Cross Keys - and most importantly the date that it will re-open with, we trust, a full range of excellent cask ales.
