Counter 71, London

See text not exactly sure what to call this establishment - it is possible the downstairs is more a cocktail bar.

April 2024 - Ground floor restaurant selling Mondo Machina Draft Lager and Mondo Dennis Hopp'r Draft IPA and the basement cocktail bar "Low country" is downstairs via a separate, marked entrance.​ Is it a pub - is it a restaurant?

July 2022 - Noted the Courage signage has been removed, hoardings have been removed and the 'pub' is advertised as being to let as a commercial unit. Planning granted 2022 - Proposed use as drinking establishment with extended food offering (sui generis use).

Sept 2020 - Noted that this pub, covered with hoardings and scaffold, is having steelwork added to the roof for the upper extension. The Courage signage running down the corner splay is still visible, so perhaps there's hope...but perhaps not!

Feb 2016 - pub closed - local group trying to campaign for its future. Planning application (2017/1996) granted by Hackney Council for erection of rear and side infill extensions and erection of two additional storeys to provide third and fourth floor levels to facilitate provision of five self-contained dwellings (use class C3) comprising 2 x 1-bed, 3 x 2-bed units at first to fourth floor levels, refurbishment of existing public house at lower ground and ground floor levels and external alterations. Officier's report dated 22nd June 2017 stated "The public house is included on the list of Assets of Community Value." Hackney Council acknowledged that the proposal "would result in a small loss of public house floor space, but also that this loss is not significant as to materially harm the use."

Once this would have been typical of the back street, corner pubs you would have found in this area, but now it's a rare example of an unassuming, community local that has not succumbed to more modern trends. There's a central bar, pool table, darts, a football team (Wellington Lyons FC), juke box and a large sports screen. Leaded, green coloured glass windows survive as does some older wood panelling and the discernible layout of what were once four separate rooms. New signage advertises itself as a free house which might indicate a change of ownership although the famous old Courage cockerel still survives on the outside.