The Place is first identifiable by its name; “ The Legendary Royal Archer”, resplendently carved in gold lettering upon a weather – worn plaque above the door. The plaque is the last vestige of flamboyance or whimsy that the customer will experience during his time at “The Archer”.
The Archer is a pub in a small side street directly within the city centre of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England. The entire area directly surrounding it, is a striking example of urban gentrification. Modernist monuments to glass and steel punctuate the adjoining streets; sophisticated wine-bars and internationally-recognized coffee shops abound. The austere 70s concrete façade of The Archer is testament, however, to the fact that it has resolutely resisted all attempts at gentrification or indeed, renovation. An exterior window is partially covered with a metal panel, gently curling and rusting at the edges. It’s a proudly ugly building, and it always has been.
As one opens the main door; a wholly anonymous slab painted many years ago in a burgundy hue, one enters the ‘lobby’. Here; just as in a museum ; one may ‘cleanse the palette’ in preparation for what lies ahead. The experience to come is hinted at by the lobby itself; a narrow, claustrophobic space with a small wall directly opposite, upon which stands a cigarette machine, filled with long-forgotten brands (John Player Special; Senior Service) and resplendent with distinct areas of cracked Perspex which bear witness, presumably, to numerous attempts to illegally acquire its contents. Directly above the cigarette machine; and perhaps the first thing upon which the eye is fixed as the front door is opened, is affixed a large piece of white paper with the hand-written letters “NO COLOURS” - a reference to the fact that anyone wearing football (soccer) shirts or scarves will be refused service in an attempt to minimize football-related violence. The most striking thing about those letters is the fact that, shakily scrawled in a red marker, they give every impression that they were written in an extremely hurried manner. For a fleeting moment, one imagines a panicked landlord, desperately fumbling to find a pen as a coach-load of menacing football hooligans arrive en masse.
Directly off the ‘lobby’, is the door to the bar itself. As one opens it and enters, the smell - a combination of stale beer, sweat and smoke (tobacco with a hint of cannabis) – is overpowering. There is no music – just the animated sounds of drunken men talking, which slowly but perceptibly diminishes as conversations are stopped abruptly to investigate the strangers who have just walked in. This is a ‘local’s’ pub; and outsiders are not necessarily welcome. The room is small and poorly – lit by a solitary pair of ceiling lights , and along the far wall a small window gives a fleeting reminder of the outside, modern world beyond. The window itself is cracked in several places and has been decorated with mullions in a diamond pattern; as though the original architect felt that the perfect window adornment for his concrete edifice, would be a flash of Tudor exuberance. The room is dominated by a huge, L-shaped slab of beautifully polished mahogany which forms the bar itself. The wood of the bar – which looks as though it once came from a far more salubrious place – appears entirely incongruous in these surroundings. Stains of indeterminate origin punctuate the popcorn-textured walls and ceilings, and the varnish on the tables has been scratched and worn for decades. The rules here, such as they are, are reminiscent of those given to the newly incarcerated at Orleans Parish Prison – avoid the bathroom unless absolutely necessary; politely refuse any offers of tattoo work; and above all, avoid direct eye contact with anyone you don’t know.
This isn’t, in my opinion, an aesthetically pleasing building; or even a particularly well-designed one. The experience it offers is not necessarily enjoyable – except perhaps in the sense of relief to be leaving at the end of the night without the underlying threat of violence ever having exploded into reality. However, “The Archer” unquestionably is a building which creates a genuine sense of ‘place’, since every experience associated with the building – from viewing the exterior to entering the lobby and the bar itself – creates an atmosphere, a sense of how to behave; an underlying sense of what this building is, and how one is likely to experience it.
