The Lion comes back to life?

How lovely! The Boy and I just wandered up the High Street and it looks like the lovely old Red Lion pub has been rescued. 

The Red Lion is a seventeenth century coaching inn, which was sadly crumbling into a state of disrepair, having survived many incarnations of various shades of repute. You can see what a splendid building it once was / could be again, and we were afraid it was going to disintegrate so badly that it could only be knocked down ...

But now it's sporting a huge banner, courtesy of the pub company Antic Ltd, who have taken it over. They list it on their website with a fantastic nineteenth century photo of the pub at the height of its glory:

via The Red Lion Leytonstone

This article on the Waltham Forest Guardian website shows the flavour of the reaction locally, both good and bad...

We look forward to it opening, both to see it saved, and because a decent local would be ace!

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