The Foxley Hatch in Purley, one of the last remaining Wetherspoon pubs in Croydon, will have its last day of trading on Sunday, December 3, the company has confirmed to Inside Croydon.
Going soon: the Foxley Hatch in Purley
The Foxley Hatch was put up for sale just over a year ago, shortly after Wetherspoon had called last orders for a final time at its Skylark pub in South Croydon and the Milan Bar in the town centre.
The Skylark and the Milan Bar closed in March and February 2022, respectively, and have remained shut ever since.
Recent figures suggest that pubs in London are closing at a rate of two every day, prompted by the cost of living crisis, as punters have less disposable income, rising prices and property costs, and high levels of VAT and duty.
The Foxley Hatch was one of more than 30 pubs that Wetherspoon put up for sale in October 2022. There have been suggestions from regulars that a buyer has now been found, and it will be taken over in due course by a “micro pub”, although that is unconfirmed.
JD Wetherspoon operates around 800 pubs in the UK and Ireland, and said that the closures announced in 2022 were a “commercial decision”. More than half of their pubs slated for closure are in London and the south-east.
“The staff here work ever so hard, and the place has always seemed busy,” said one Hatch regular. “But then, from what we heard, the Skylark did decent business, too, and they closed that.”
Petitions gathered with more than a thousand signatures, separately for both the Skylark and Foxley Hatch, came to nothing. Foxley Hatch staff will be offered work at other Wetherspoon pubs.
Wetherspoon’s remaining pubs in Croydon include The George in the town centre, the Sir Julian Huxley in Selsdon, and The Moon Under Water in Norbury.
Confirming the December 3 closure date for the Foxley Hatch, Wetherspoon spokesman Eddie Gershon said, “We would like to thank all of the staff and customers at the Foxley Hatch who have made it such a wonderful pub.
“We appreciate our staff’s dedication and hard work and our customers’ loyalty.”
Reader offer: Christmas cheers! 15% off Anspach & Hobday beers with iC
- Inside Croydon – as seen on TV! – has been delivering local community news since 2010. 3million page views per year in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
- If you want real journalism, actually based in the borough, you should consider paying for it. Please sign up today. Click here for more details
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Nightmare! All the leftie hipsters sneer at ‘spoons pubs like the ‘Hatch, but this is a disaster for Purley. The ‘Hatch offered a great choice of excellent, fresh real ales at great prices. I wasn’t exactly a regular but will miss the place. I’d welcome a micropub like the Radius in Whyteleafe, but this a big, big place and that wouldn’t work. Why doesn’t Mayor Perry step in and rescue the ‘Hatch – he looks like a man who loves real ale and pies, after all.
Fascinating to see a commenter establish their right wing credentials in line one then by the last line advocate massive state intervention in pubs. Like a man who doesn’t have a clue what right wing free market economics actually does.
My Perry comment was meant to be ironic. Obviously not.
Look whose right whinging again. This time producing a miasma of left wing hipsters sneering at ‘spoons, which in some way seems to have contributed to the demise of the Purley branch. Funnily enough the old right whinger prefers to travel out of the borough himself to pay the higher prices at the Radius.
The Foxley is one of the few Wetherspoons that is still in good condition and reminiscent of the 90’s heyday when Tim Martin was rapidly expanding and innovating into retail units outside of purpose built pubs. It’s demise is systematic of the deep malaise we are in. Mare Perry looks like he has eat all the pies already and incapable of doing anything in his prandial stupor.
Good riddance. Tim Martin is an odious brexiteer and funder of numbers of right wing causes. One of his pubs employed an alchoholic friend of mine as a zero hours cleaner and gave him as much free beer as he wanted, in full knowledge of his condition. It killed him, in complete accordance with Martin’s irresponsible laissez-faire attitude. There has to be a better provider of such hospitality than that brute.