30th Anniversary - Good On Paper
Photo: George Withington
The Prince Albert: 30 Years of Lotte and Miles
By Jon Seagrave
From Good On Paper, Issue 132, May 2026
“If ever I left pubs, my dream would be to run a massive home for old delinquents”, says Lotte Lyster, with the breezy confidence of someone who’s spent a lifetime training for the job.
We’re upstairs in the Albert, which looks a bit like downstairs in the Albert, but after a massive party where no-one’s yet surfaced to confront the carnage. Obvs, I mean this in a good way - I love the Albert; everybody does. Stuck on an awkward corner, up a very steep hill on the fringe of town, it’s all about giddy, glorious LIFE, in capital letters and italics. It’s a pub, yes, but it’s a whole lot more: gig venue, occasional cinema, neo-pagan breakfast cafe, political rallying ground - to name a few. It’s a riot of gaudy colour, awash with kids and dogs, all warm bohemia, cheery grins, and down-to-earth scruffiness; everyone’s welcome, just don’t be a dick. It feels like what back-street Barcelona must have felt like in 1936, all revolutionary spirit and the anarchists running the show. And this month, Lotte’s been at the helm for 30 years. “We’ve asked some pretty big names to play the party”, she grins, “and we’ve had some very positive comeback. Watch this space!”
Lotte’s on granny duty up here today, in between the pub stuff, and her grandson potters round in the happy chaos. Her other ‘arf of 21 years- publican and part-time Squeeze roadie Miles Connolly - joins us, and bar staff pop in and out with queries; it’s all go. Lotte sits in the middle of it, exuding a sort of scruffy, beaming calm; this cheery storm is clearly her comfort zone.
Lotte first turned up round here in her teens, after her folks quit London to run the post office in Chalford; popping down to visit, she found to her surprise not the anticipated pastoral dullness, but a buzz of arts, music and great parties. “It was wild”, she says, and soon enough she moved here, becoming a regular at The Pelican, the legendary town-centre countercultural hotspot, run by the equally legendary team of Ian Wood, late lamented Andy Thomas and Beaver who had turned up in Stroud from the Hat and Feather in Bath. “Then, when I was literally just about to move back to London, I went for my last drinks at The Pelly, and they said they were desperate for staff. Could I help them out for a few shifts? So I said, ‘sure, London can wait a week’”
Eight years and three kids later, Beaver and Lotte left the Pelly to take on a run-down, struggling, half-forgotten boozer called The Prince Albert. “It was May 1996. Alfie was eight months old, Ruby was two, and Will was three. And I just thought, ‘I can’t have three kids in a town centre pub anymore.’”
Photo: George Withington
Despite being shooed away by the incumbent publican when they went to look round because we don’t serve your sort here (“Unfair!”, says Lotte, “we were very tidy crusties-we lived in a pub!”), and despite being up against eight other interested couples, the pub’s then-owners - Pubmaster - took a punt on them, and the rest is history. Life being life, Lotte and Beaver split up, and Lotte rolled up her sleeves and flew solo for a while, running a by-then buzzing pub with her fleet of sprogs (four of them by now - hello, Pearl) hanging off her skirts before, at last, she met Miles (a veteran of running pubs in Cheltenham) at Glastonbury, and fell in love. And 21 years ago, she dragged him into the whirlwind, the last vital cog in the Albert machine. “Oh, there was no dragging involved!”, laughs Miles.
It’s a surprise to most to find The Albert, seemingly the most free-spirited of public houses, is not a ‘free house’ at all but is owned by a PubCo (Punch), contractually-bound to buy the majority of its booze from the PubCo at inflated prices, massively reducing potential earnings. Indeed, the perilous state of Lotte and Miles’ bank account ended up paraded on national telly a few years back, when The Albert starred alongside other struggling boozers in Tom Kerridge’s Saving Britain’s Pubs. TV exposure did earn them a bit of leverage: keen to appear supportive, Punch agreed to give them free rein on a couple of beer pumps, replaced the carpets, and installed a kitchen so The Albert could start doing food, which has been a bit of a lifesaver, financially. But they’re certainly not rolling in it and so, from top-notch gigs to Christmas trees to shanty singing to bacon butties at Beltaine dawn, necessity has made of them masters of the side-hustle and the niche ‘offer’. “We’re always making sure we’ve got on offer what people want”, says Lotte, “and we get excited when we do something left-of-centre, like have group harp lessons on a Thursday night”. “Partners come and sit and have a beer and a pizza while their other half has a harp lesson”, adds Miles. “It makes for a nice background noise!”
It’s this willingness to work with anyone and everyone for the benefit of all that really marks The Albert out, and makes it so beloved, effortlessly combining as it does its trad pub role as home-from-home for grown-ups with a real child-friendly, family vibe. “I think the brewery understands that without Lottie and myself in it, this building would probably now be a house”, says Miles. “It’s got nothing going for it - halfway up a steep hill, on a crossroads, no car park. And yet we’ve got so much support. And some brilliant people help us out - d&b audiotechnik, for instance, support us with an amazing PA, much better than a pub this size could normally afford. It really ups the ante as to what calibre artists we can attract. It’s a proper gig.”
Photo: George Withington
Of course, there have been shaky moments - in 2005, the pub was gutted by fire.”Kids, Lottie, the au pair, the dog - all had to dive out the end window”, says Miles. They didn’t reopen til that November. And then there was the ill-fated Marshall Rooms, the Nelson Street venue and club partnership with actor and partnership with actor and professional loose cannon Keith Allen and Sound Engineer Tom De Brabant “We gave it a go”, shrugs Lotte. “It didn’t work. Nobody died.”
“We’re able to blossom because Stroud is community”, she says. “And we’ve always been really strong on pointing people in the direction of other stuff going on - if you’re not into what we’ve got on here, go try the Alehouse or wherever” Miles nods. “You could arrive here, in the centre of town, and think there’s nothing here but a few charity shops. But scratch the surface, you find all this amazing stuff - The Albert, The Trinity Rooms, Studio 18…”
Lotte leans back and helps herself to another Coco Caravan chocolate. “Miles is 60 this year, I’m 60 next year, I had my hip replaced last year, so I can be active again on the bar. We’ve got a big 30 Years party at the end of May. And you know what? We’ll then probably be here another 30 years.”
And if not, then there’s always that massive home for old delinquents. I’m putting my name down now.
Jon Seagrave aka Jonny Fluffypunk is a writer, performer and no-fi theatremaker. He’ll have a pint of Rosie’s Pig, and chorizo crisps. Cheers!
