Grade II listed London pub awarded £3.8m lottery funding

The Fellowship Inn, near Catford in south London, boasts a currently unused and dilapidated dance hall and cinema to the rear.

The housing co-operative Phoenix Community Housing submitted a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund after acquiring the freehold from Lewisham Council.

The bid proposes restoring the pub and theatre including a bakery, microbrewery, artists’ studios and a café. The project will secure the future of the community pub while creating more than 70 jobs and many more training and volunteering opportunities.

Boost​

Phoenix Community Housing Board member and local councillor Alan Hall said: “Both The Fellowship Inn and the Bellingham community have won the lottery today. This is a seriously major boost for the area.

"We asked for a significant amount and I am delighted that all our hard work has paid off. This pub and building has considerable cultural and architectural significance and we will be restoring it to its original purpose and role as a major community resource pub as created by the London County Council nearly a century ago."

Until the late 1960s the large hall at the rear of the pub was used as a music venue. In 1963, prior to his fight with Cassius Clay, Henry Cooper was reported to be living and training at the Fellowship Inn.

The building was Grade II listed by English Heritage in 2013, as a “remarkably complete example of an inter-war public house”.