'Clockwork' pub to be converted

9:17am Wednesday 23rd October 2002

A pub featured in Stanley Kubrick's controversial film A Clockwork Orange is to be converted into flats.

The Bottle and Dragon pub (formerly the Old Leather Bottle) in Stonegrove, Edgware, was the setting for a brief restaurant scene featuring a 'plump waitress' in Kubrick's seminal 1972 film. But it later fell on hard times, serving its last pint on October 8.

Developer Pinecal plans to build 20 flats and a medical centre on the site it is said to have paid £2 million for.

Bob Hallett worked at the pub in 1971 and now runs the Cock and Dragon pub in Cockfosters. He said: "It's rather sad. It didn't take off as a pub-cum-Thai restaurant and it was hard to justify keeping it open for one or two regulars."

According to Mr Hallett, the pub was popular as a steakhouse in the 1970s but later became associated with drug dealing "the demise of many a pub".

Some residents were dismayed to see Stonegrove's last pub close. The area's only other pub, the Corner House, was sold four years ago and turned into a McDonald's restaurant.

But others were not so sad to see the pub go, having complained of a smell from the kitchen and broken glass on nearby streets.

London's booming property market has accounted for more than 300 pubs in the past two years, according to the Campaign for Real Ale.

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