{"id":15107,"date":"2014-07-31T11:00:01","date_gmt":"2014-07-31T10:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=15107"},"modified":"2014-07-31T12:00:01","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T11:00:01","slug":"the-hand-and-racquet-pub-in-london-disgracefully-rots-away-three-years-after-the-free-school-was-evicted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/the-hand-and-racquet-pub-in-london-disgracefully-rots-away-three-years-after-the-free-school-was-evicted\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-01.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I first wrote about this disused pub\u00a0in central London back in January 2010, when it was already <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/london\/hand-and-racquet-pub-london-wc2.html\" target=\"_blank\">closed and boarded up<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Some thirteen\u00a0months later, the long-empty space was brought back into community use, with the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/londonfreeschool.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Really Free School<\/a>\u00a0squatting the premises and hosting\u00a0film\u00a0screenings, workshops,\u00a0discussions, lessons, skill shares and debates.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-02.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Naturally, The Man wasn&#8217;t keen on that idea at all and the Free School was fairly swiftly evicted and extra locks put on the doors to ensure that this large space\u00a0would stay empty.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-03.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Over three years later, this fine old Victorian building is still unused with its structure slowly falling apart.<\/p>\n<p>The paintwork is peeling off, the wood is starting to break away and the structure is heading into dereliction.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-09.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Given the lack of affordable housing, the growing homelessness in the capital and the lack of space for community groups, it makes me unbelievably angry to know that a greedy\u00a0landlord would rather watch this pub rot away than let it be put into productive use.<\/p>\n<p>Shame on you, whoever you are.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-04.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-05.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-06.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-07.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-08.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-10.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-11.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-12.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-13.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-14.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/images\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-15.jpg\" alt=\"The Hand and Racquet pub in London disgracefully rots away, three years after the Free School was evicted.  Photos from July 2014\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hand &amp; Racquet pub, 48 Whitcomb Street, London, WC2H 7HA<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.net\/forums\/threads\/three-years-after-the-free-school-was-evicted-the-hand-and-racquet-rots-away.326159\/\" target=\"_blank\">Discuss this pub on the urban75 forums<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I first wrote about this disused pub\u00a0in central London back in January 2010, when it was already closed and boarded up. Some thirteen\u00a0months later, the long-empty space was brought back &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[194,17,193],"tags":[941,354,438,684],"class_list":["post-15107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london-features","category-photos","category-places","tag-free-school","tag-housing","tag-pub","tag-squatting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/hand-and-racquet-rots-away-011.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-3VF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15107"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15119,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15107\/revisions\/15119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}