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London · Venue

Hope & Anchor

A compact, 80-capacity basement room beneath a Grade II-listed Upper Street pub, with pub-rock and punk history in its walls.

Upcoming shows
28
Capacity
80
Address
207 Upper Street, N1 1RL London
Phone
020 7354 1312
Next show
Fri, 9 Oct 2026
Official siteDirections
Hope & Anchor in London

About Hope & Anchor

Hope & Anchor is an 80-capacity basement room beneath an 1880 Grade II-listed pub on Upper Street in Islington, London. Its distinguishing feature is scale: shows play out close to a raised 6m-by-3m stage in the lower floor of a four-storey Victorian corner building. Expect a compact standing room, a direct band-to-crowd relationship, and the pub bar one level above the music.

A basement rescued by a festival

The building began as a public house around 1880. In 1972, landlord Fred Grainger and manager Dave Robinson turned the basement into a pub-rock room, after the Tally Ho in Kentish Town switched its musical focus; Robinson then helped build a London circuit for acts playing original material.

Its defining crisis arrived in 1977. With closure looming, Ian Grant assembled the Front Row Festival: 22 returning bands played from 22 November through 15 December, raising funds while RAK Mobile recorded the shows on Upper Street. Warner Bros. released those recordings as the Hope & Anchor Front Row Festival double LP in March 1978; it reached No. 28 on the UK albums chart. Dire Straits, X-Ray Spex, XTC and Steel Pulse all appeared across the run.

A later break came after Islington Council revoked the music licence in 1985. The pub then sat empty for months, became a wine bar in 1988, and live music returned in 1996 through the Sausage Factory’s weekly Friday bills.

The room now

Hope & Anchor remains geared toward grassroots bills. Its booking enquiry invites bands, promoters and event organisers to propose line-ups, genres, audience estimates and dates, while the present calendar ranges through indie, alternative rock, metal, pop, folk, R&B and electronic nights. The technical setup includes guitar and bass backline, Pioneer DJ decks, a compact lighting rig and the 6m-by-3m raised stage. The venue sits in the basement, so access involves stairs; the main pub floor carries the bar and tables.

Sources

  1. Hope & Anchor – London’s Most Famous Live Music Venue — Hope & Anchor
  2. Hope and Anchor Public House, 207 Upper Street — Historic England
  3. Hope & Anchor Front Row Festival — The Stranglers
  4. Hope & Anchor Front Row Festival — Music Week

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