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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Tomé Morrissy-Swan

‘Where the magic really happens’: the influencers out to celebrate – and save – Britain’s ‘proper boozers’

A crowd of people sit inside a dimly lit pub
‘It’s better to see a busy pub than a dead set of flats’: Proper Boozers’ most popular video, shot in the Palm Tree, east London, received 1.2m views. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

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.”

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