Starting Gate

An impressive two storey corner pub with a considerable amount of its rich, late-Victorian furnishings remaining.

The building started life as the Palace Café and opened in 1875, the same year as Alexandra Palace, which still dominates the skyline to the west. It had turned into a pub by 1896 and was known as the Alexandra Palace Hotel; in1955 it became the Starting Gate in honour of the nearby race course. It was refitted by the obscure architect Richard Dickenson of John Street, Adelphi, in 1899 – no doubt the date of much of what we see today.

This is a large, airy pub with high ceilings and large windows. There is an ample central servery with a good original panelled oak counter, albeit one crudely overlaid with a modern top. At one time, there would have been numerous separate bars, and two impressive full height timber and etched glass partitions remain from  the original scheme, plus several baffles (cut down partitions). A timber glazed arch above the servery spans two mighty, fluted cast-iron Corinthian columns (one has been denuded of its decoration). There’s a bank of snob screens on the counter on the left-hand side of the pub. On the left-hand wall is a series of framed watercolour paintings, possibly Edwardian and mainly of pastoral scenes, but including one of Alexandra Palace.

From the St Michael’s Terrace entrance, marked with mosaic flooring, there was formerly a corridor leading to the erstwhile saloon bar at the rear. A striking full height timber and etched glass partition divided it from the body of the pub. Thankfully, this is still extant, but the corridor now houses a staircase leading to the floor above. The aforementioned bar displays a fine wooden fireplace supporting a plain mirror in a decorative overmantel. 

In the front part of the pub is a modicum of matchboard panelling. Of the vestibules which remain, that at the front beyond a mighty depressed arch is most impressive. It’s a full height affair, with a copious amount of etched glass, and lacks only its inner doors. The area to the left of the pub has been brought into use in recent times, but  it in no way detracts from the ambience of the historic interior.