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Picture source: Darkstar

The Kensington Tavern was situated at 54 Russell Gardens. This pub was demolished in 2014.

I lived in Olympia around about 1991-1993. I was at university at Imperial, and had a flat share in Russell road. A fair few good pubs around here, and the Kensington Tavern was one of them. I loved it, big windows, beer was not too bad, and the best thing was that it had a couple of chaise longues, so you could recline like a roman emperor, albeit whilst drinking a pint. On weekends there was often live music in the back room, and I saw a few decent little bands there. It was quite nice back then, but I think it had a degree of decline before it closed. Also: it appeared in Minder a couple of times apparently, and I certainly spotted it in an episode of Sweeney I reckon!

Richard Rowe (January 2021)

I can confirm that one of the episodes of Minder where this pub appeared (when it was called The Bricklayers Arms) was in the first few minutes of S02 E08 "All Mod Cons" (1980) where Arthur oddly turns out to be a hustler as an expert Space Invaders player, a good shot of the exterior then follows as he splits the winnings with Terry as they walk out into the street.

Jim Dye (November 2021)

This was the pub where Freddie Mercury met Brian May and Roger Taylor, where Freddie met Mary Austen and where Roger Taylor met their manager John Harris.

Neil (September 2023)

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