One of King’s Cross’s most storied pubs is about to reopen its doors after three years shuttered — and it will do so under the ownership of one of Britain’s most celebrated artists.
McGlynn’s Free House on Whidbourne Street, a backstreet Irish local that has stood empty since the sudden death of its landlord Gerry Dolan in August 2023, is undergoing a top-to-toe refurbishment masterminded by landscape painter Peter Doig and his gallerist partner Parinaz Mogadassi.
The pair are understood to have bought the pub through Doig’s company, Tramps International Ltd, in April 2025 for £3.15 million. A series of planning applications has since been lodged with Camden Council seeking listed building consent for internal alterations and a full restoration of what the documents describe as the “historic shopfront”.
Consent for that restoration was granted in April 2026, and work is now underway. The latest application asks for permission to install four retractable canvas awnings outside the Grade II listed building as part of the ongoing works.
A local institution, kept intact
Dolan had run McGlynn’s since the 1990s, turning it into the kind of pub London is steadily losing: a proper backstreet boozer with a carpet, a cat and a well-kept pint of cask ale. He once described the clientele as “tourists, locals, builders and businessmen”, and the mix was the point — the place belonged to everyone.
Under the new plans, the pub will keep its name. The architects say the wording on the proposed awnings will read “McGlynn’s Free House”, replicating the existing painted signage.
The pub sits in the Bloomsbury Conservation Area. The ground floor holds a bar and a dining room, with staff accommodation above. Proposals include redesigning the bar and adapting the cellar to house toilets — changes aimed at preserving the historic building while making it workable as a pub in the modern era.
Trevor Horne Architects, writing in a design heritage statement submitted to Camden, said the awnings would provide shelter for outdoor seating, create a more active street presence and help boost the pub’s trading capacity. The black canvas awnings have been designed to comply with Camden’s planning guidance and would be made by a specialist heritage supplier — retractable, and concealed within a hardwood blind box.
“Proposed materials will be robust, high quality and in-keeping with the traditional character of the shopfront, in a black colour scheme to match the existing frontage,” the architects wrote. “The awnings will incorporate printed lettering to replicate the existing painted signage.”
The statement describes the scheme as a “high-quality, low-impact intervention that will respect the historic significance of the shopfront while ensuring the pub can continue to function as a viable community asset in the long term”.
From the Duke of Wellington to McGlynn’s
The building’s story stretches well beyond Dolan’s tenure. The pub was originally called The Duke of Wellington, and only became McGlynn’s when it passed into Irish ownership — a familiar arc for London’s Irish pubs, many of which were taken on by Irish landlords in the postwar decades and never looked back.
Irish pubs have long been the backbone of London’s pub map, and King’s Cross had more than its share when the area was rougher and cheaper. McGlynn’s survived the transformation of King’s Cross over the past twenty years — the regeneration around St Pancras, the new offices and student blocks, the rising rents that have picked off lesser pubs — until its doors finally closed with Dolan’s death.
A new chapter for King’s Cross drinking
Doig is not the only figure to have invested in London’s pub culture in recent years, but his involvement is striking: a painter whose canvases sell for tens of millions turning his attention to a backstreet boozer’s shopfront. It suggests the same thing regulars have always known — that a good pub is a cultural asset worth fighting for.
The area around the station continues to change at pace, from major transport projects like the work at King’s Cross St Pancras to the steady churn of hospitality venues opening, closing and reinventing themselves. A revived McGlynn’s — restored rather than reinvented — will sit comfortably alongside the newer arrivals.
It also fits a wider pattern of serious money flowing back into London’s independent venues. With a new £70m growth fund now open to ambitious London businesses, investors are once again betting on the capital’s pubs, breweries and hospitality firms — provided the fundamentals, like a well-run building in a strong location, are right.
Across the borough, venues with deep roots are finding new leases of life rather than being flattened. In Camden, the recent celebrations marking Amy Winehouse’s legacy showed how fiercely Londoners defend the cultural fabric of their neighbourhoods — pubs included.
What happens next
Camden Council will now consider the awnings application alongside the restoration already underway. If all goes to plan, McGlynn’s — name intact, shopfront restored, awnings unfurled — could be pouring pints again within months.
For regulars who mourned its closure three years ago, that cannot come soon enough. The carpet, the cat and the cask ale may be of another era, but the pub that housed them looks set to outlast them all.
