Former strip club in King's Cross wins prestigious national pub award after renovation

Scottish Stores: The popular pub and former strip club has just won and national design award
CAMRA

A former strip club has been given a top award after being renovated and turned into a pub.

Scottish Stores, a freehouse near King’s Cross station, attracted notoriety as a strip venue in the 1980s.

Once better known for pub brawls than its beer quality, it has now clinched a top design award in a prestigious national scheme.

The popular watering hole, in Caledonian Road, picked up the 2016 conservation award from The Campaign for Real Ale on Monday.

King Cross's Scottish Stores won this year's Campaign for Real Ale national award for design
CAMRA

Originally an inn, Scottish Stores got its name from its tradition of hanging venison from the bar which were bought and sold by Scots traders.

In its early days, the four-storey Grade II-listed building became the haunt of prostitutes and gangs.

It was restyled and renamed The Flying Scotsman in the early 1980s when it attracted a reputation for being one of the last remaining strip pubs in London.

The pub's general manager Ian Collins told the Standard: “Back in the 80s it was always full of testosterone-laden men who would come in for a pint and the strippers.

“There a plenty of stories of brawls and fights and that sort of stuff, of course.

“It had a really horrible past in parts, but the most interesting is what has been preserved – the Scots tradesmen.

He added: “The pub was an Inn at the time, and the tradesmen would come in with haunches of venison on their backs and hang them above the bar.

“They would sell them and get back on the train from King’s Cross with lots of money in their back pockets.

“We do still get customers coming in who remember the pub in its old days and they get quite a surprise."

Now, after re-opening in December 2015 under its original name, the bar boasts its three small, wood-panelled bars and arts and crafts-style detail.

The business’s main focus is now as an ale and craft beer pub with a rotating beer range.

Mr Collins added: "It's part of the King's Cross area regeneration. We're happy and proud to have played our part in it."

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