The Calthorpe Arms on Gray’s Inn Road is a fairly atypical central London pub. With patterned red carpets, brass fittings, leather bar stools, a pool table and Christmas tinsel still hanging in early February, it feels very much a “local”, although on a Thursday evening it’s busy with the post-work crowd.
It’s the fifth time Niall Walsh, who works nearby and runs the Proper Boozers Instagram account, has visited in recent months. “It’s just off the beaten track, but easy to get to,” Walsh says over a pint of Harvey’s. “You can get a real, authentic pub experience.”
About 366 pubs closed last year, and ever-increasing costs are making it increasingly difficult to run this most British of institutions. But a viral social media post can help. Last year, the Wheatsheaf in Romford, London, took to social media to thank two accounts, Proper Boozers and London Dead Pubs, for featuring them: “The exposure it’s brought our family-run pub has been incredible.”
Thankfully for pubs, there are now myriad accounts promoting their establishments, and Instagram has become a hotbed of pub content. London Pub Explorer is strong on social history; London Pub Map is attempting to drink at every London pub, and the Great British Pub Crawl the same across the country. Those with niche concerns will find something, too. Lydia Wood Drawings is drawing every London pub; Peaks and Pubs combines outdoor activities with pints; and Beautiful Boozers emphasises the aesthetic pleasures. Equally as aesthetically pleasing, Egg Chip Bean Pint merely posts a picture of a plate of egg, chips and beans alongside a pint from a nearby pub. My algorithm is now 90% pub content.
Walsh was born in London to Irish parents who managed pubs in London and Essex. “My playroom was the bar,” he says. “The characters fascinated me: they were some of the most interesting people I’ve ever met.” His father warned him not to follow suit, but Walsh found another way to ensconce himself in pubs: by vlogging about them.
Walsh created Proper Boozers in 2019, at first visiting a few pubs a week, having a few pints and “getting a feel for the place”. He’d post about those he liked and soon amassed 9,000 followers. After a hiatus, he began investing more time into the account in 2024, and now boasts more than 87,000 followers.
Jimmy McIntosh runs another popular Instagram account. His motivation began in lockdown, when lengthy walks took him past countless closed or demolished sites. McIntosh chose to document the continued decline through his page, London Dead Pubs, but by 2024 switched to “live pubs, which are a lot less depressing than dead ones”.
Like Walsh, McIntosh, who wears a trademark beige trenchcoat, focuses on traditional wet-led boozers, many with patterned carpets and elegant banquettes. “Pubs can and should be very glamorous places,” he says, pointing to his local, the Prince Edward in Holloway. “It’s beautiful and has more wit and warmth within its Regency striped walls than a million dull, burger-scented chain pubs put together.”
McIntosh usually identifies pubs that are visually appealing or have an interesting story, writes a script – which may feature titbits on gentrification or local closures – then captures footage at the pub. The vast majority have been receptive: “We’ll never slag anyone off unduly, so most landlords are quite pleased to have their places shown in a positive light.”
Ironically, one of McIntosh’s most successful posts was a takedown of BrewDog Waterloo. “Probably,” he says, “because it’s the only video where we’ve given somewhere a really good kicking. It deserved it, though. It really was less a pub and more an infantilised creche for podcasters and middle managers.”
Mostly self-funded, apart from a couple of beer adverts in the past, McIntosh has had several landlords ask for a review in exchange for pints or cash, though has always refused. He recently launched a Patreon, hoping to fund pub journeys across the country.
Those Pub Guys have taken a different approach. Started by four schoolfriends in Surrey and West Sussex, the page emerged from group bike rides in the countryside. Rather than old-school boozers, they were most intrigued by a pub’s history or a quirky activity – on the day we speak, they’re about to visit a pub in Guildford with an attached rage room. “We’ve tried to do as many of the ones that claim to be the oldest pub in the country,” says Jake Tuppen. “Anything that’s got a cool history, like Winston Churchill used to drink there, that’s what gets us excited to go and film.”
Theirs is a lighthearted approach, featuring one or two of the group speaking to camera from within the pub – which requires running it by the owners in advance. Trips have taken them to the Skirrid Inn in Wales, where legend has it 200 people were hanged (rope marks can still be seen on a wooden beam), and the Viaduct Tavern in St Paul’s, central London, which has old jail cells by its cellars. With a strong focus on rural pubs, particularly in the home counties and the south-west, they plan to visit mainland Britain’s most remote pub, the Old Forge in Inverie, in the coming weeks. They have done paid posts with pubs, although hope to monetise their account in future through merchandise and experiences such as quiz nights.
Walsh says most pubs he features earn “proper boozer” status. What makes one proper? There could be velvet curtains, or worn wooden or carpet floors. Ideally owner-operated with a strong local crowd. Food is fine, as long as it’s a sideshow, and sports is optional. Bonus points for cash only, a dying breed. “It’s quite a personal thing, I’m no arbiter of what people define as proper,” says Walsh, who never shows himself in his videos.
For many, pubs are an extension of the living room, and punters might not want someone waving a camera in their face. Yet Walsh and McIntosh have rarely encountered pushback. Those Pub Guys, whose approach is more intrusive, had one scrape with a heavily intoxicated party at Britain’s highest pub, the Tan Hill Inn in the Yorkshire Dales, but likewise have mostly been met with friendliness. “We’re not the best at remembering lines,” Tuppen says, “so we often do quite a few takes. You’ll get people heckling, laughing.”
Predictably, backlash comes online. Some call Walsh’s boozers a “dump”; Those Pub Guys receive remarks on their “cringiness”. “We’ve been called the c-word a few times, but we just look past it,” says Ben Foster, one of its members.
None that I spoke to considers themselves influencers (“content creators” is a preferred term), but each acknowledges a desire to promote Britain’s ailing pub industry. “I don’t see myself as a crusader,” Walsh says, “but I’d like to think people see pubs in their local area they haven’t been to, maybe that they thought looked scary, and have the confidence to go in.” His most-viewed video, on the Palm Tree in east London, received 1.2m views, surely some of whom were encouraged to visit.
McIntosh is motivated by shining a light on pubs that “don’t get the love they deserve”. They might be on the outskirts, in unfashionable areas, or neglected by the countless “best of” articles found online. “I always find they’re the places where the magic really happens, and also the places that are under threat from closure,” he says. “If we can convince even a handful of people to go to them, and maybe keep them in business, I’d be happy.”
A few landlords have told McIntosh that business has boomed since his videos, although it’s impossible to measure where that came from. “It’s more that I think there’s been a reaction against the stripped-back, strip-lit gastropubs in favour of your more traditional style of pub. You can see that in the pubs that London’s young people are frequenting: the Army & Navy in Dalston, the Blue Posts on Berwick Street, the King’s Head on Blackstock Road and the Dog & Bell in Deptford.”
Indeed, the Army & Navy is booming. When Walsh first visited, it was “all mobility scooters outside, rugged carpets, a very spartan setup inside”. It is now one of London’s trendiest pubs. Does he worry about contributing to gentrification? “I’m abundantly aware of a renaissance in these types of pubs in pop culture, social media, Guinness and all that,” he says. “That’s naturally fed into a bit of a flavour for traditional old-man pubs. [But] it’s better to see a busy pub than a dead set of flats.”
After Walsh’s most recent visit to the Calthorpe, he is now preparing a full post, which he expects to release in early March. For me, it is yet another previously unknown or ignored pub – like the Crown on Holloway Road or the Eagle in Homerton – discovered through social media and now added to my rotation. Proper boozer, indeed.
