A vintage pop-up shop has opened inside The Old Dairy, the Grade II listed Victorian pub on Crouch Hill, giving the closed pub a new lease of life in the run-up to Christmas — and offering a glimpse of what its future could hold.
The shop, run by Lucy Pollard of Otoch Bespoke, sells vintage treasures, jewellery and furniture from inside the pub. It will run until Christmas, with two vintage and makers markets planned in the coming weeks.
The whole pub will be taken over by a local makers and vintage market on Friday 21 November, and again over the weekend of 12 and 13 December.
Pollard said the response from the neighbourhood had been striking. “We did an amazing local makers and vintage market in the whole of the pub in October and the footfall and enthusiasm was really something,” she said. “We have a pop-up shop and complementary markets in the run up to Christmas.”
She added: “We’ve had such a wonderful sense of support and interest in the Old Dairy being used as a community space and the whole of the community is extremely interested in what’s going to happen to the pub.”
The October market offered a preview of what the pop-up could become. Stalls filled the whole pub, and Pollard said the footfall and enthusiasm were really something — an early sign that the building’s future may lie in being used, not just preserved.
The pop-up comes as the pub awaits new landlords, after months standing empty. According to the Campaign for Real Ale, The Dairy has been closed since early May — some three years after it underwent a major six-figure refurbishment under its former owners, Greene King.
The pub stands at 1-3 Crouch Hill in Stroud Green, where for years it was a fixture of the street. Its closure left one of the area’s most recognisable buildings dark, and the pop-up is the first sign of life there since the spring.
The building itself is part of the attraction. The Grade II listed Victorian pub has unusual decorative panels illustrating traditional milk production methods, a reminder of its origins as a shop and creamery for the Friern Manor Dairy Farm Company. The pub’s name is no accident: the building began life serving the dairy farm, and the panels inside still show churns, pails and dairy workers from the days when milk was produced and sold on the same premises.
The vintage shop is not the only new use for the building. In September it was reported that the pub was relaunching as a temporary cabaret and comedy venue, running under the banner Finsbury Park Cabaret, with a series of Saturday night events. The first took place on Halloween, with further nights planned for 28 November and 12 December.
The cabaret nights are part of a separate push to bring the building back into use as an events space, with Saturday night shows staged in the pub while its longer-term future is decided.
It is the latest example of a historic London pub finding a new purpose rather than standing empty. In Forest Hill, the historic Capitol pub has swapped pints for a children’s soft-play centre, while in Carshalton, the Hope pub has been named among Britain’s best for putting conversation first.
For now, the pop-up and the markets give local people a reason to walk through the doors again. The dates to note are Friday 21 November, when the makers and vintage market takes over the whole pub; Friday 28 November and Saturday 12 December, when the cabaret and comedy nights return; and the weekend of 12 and 13 December, when the market returns. The pop-up shop itself runs until Christmas, as festive events begin across the capital.
Whether the pop-up leads to something permanent remains to be seen. For now, the doors are open again — and a pub that spent the summer dark has a Christmas ahead of it.
