For over three decades, The Coleherne was celebrated for its Sunday lunchtime music sessions,[1] cutting across barriers of race, class, age and sexual orientation in a way unique in London.

[3][5] He played solo piano on weekend evenings,[6] and, for the next 35 years, The Coleherne was the focus for dozens of musicians in search of a jam - much to the delight of brewers Bass Charrington.

[6] The rich rhythmic mix involved percussionists including Errol Phillip aka "Blocker",[2] and double-bassists Brylo Ford, Irving Clement and David "Happy" Williams, followed by Clyde Davies, who soon switched to electric bass guitar.

[10] Audiences included rock and pop musicians such as Eric Burdon,[8] Georgie Fame and Mick Jagger,[8] actors Norman Beaton, Ram John Holder, Danny "Pressure" Jackson, Horace James and Bari Jonson, poets Pete Brown and Michael Horovitz, publisher Peter Owen, and calypsonian Lord Kitchener.

In 1966, Henderson, Betancourt and Max Cherrie were recruited from The Coleherne to play steel-drums for the children's event organised by social worker Rhaune Laslett that evolved into the first Notting Hill Carnival.

[16] Over the years, many police arrests were made for a range of offences, including obstruction, soliciting, importuning, and the more serious conspiracy to corrupt public morals, in the street outside the pub at night when customers left at closing time.

These arrests were often just as a result of little more than gay men standing in the street talking to each other—despite the fact that many other non-gay pubs in the area used to have similar crowds at closing time, with no police action taken against them.

He ordered another gin and tonic and stood at the bulletin board reading announcements about Gay Tory meetings and 'jumble sales' to benefit deaf lesbians.When he returned to the horseshoe-shaped bar, the man across from him smiled broadly.