‘It opened my eyes to the city’: the artist drawing every single pub in London
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- Lydia Wood began her "pub project" in 2021 after losing her teaching job during Covid, asking social media followers which pubs to draw; the response went viral and she has since sketched over 350 of London's approximately 3,500 pubs
- Wood chose pencil as her sole medium despite the labor — her drawings take anywhere from six hours to multiple days, with The Blackfriar (42 by 52.9cm) taking five days to complete
- The Trafalgar, a 150-year-old pub in south Wimbledon that developers want to demolish for flats, is among Wood's recent subjects; locals are campaigning to bring it under community ownership
- Around 1,000 London pubs have closed in the last 20 years, according to the source, while surviving venues adapt with drag shows, book clubs, and quiz nights to attract younger generations
- Wood's book Locals features 60 drawings organized geographically — she "wanted the book to feel like you are suddenly pulled to one end of the city, and then to the other"
- Specific pubs documented include The Cockpit (a 19th-century cock-fighting site near where Shakespeare reportedly bought a house in the 1600s), The Faltering Fullback in Finsbury Park, and The Rifleman in Twickenham, which is also under threat of closure
Why it matters: Wood's project arrives as London's pub landscape is shrinking — about 1,000 capital pubs have closed in 20 years. Her book functions as both an art catalog and a preservation record, with several featured pubs actively under threat: the 150-year-old Trafalgar faces demolition for flats, and The Rifleman in Twickenham is fighting closure as locals mobilize community ownership campaigns.
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