Who played when you were at the Bull's Head?

The upstairs room at the Bull’s Head in Barnes has held more jazz history than most London venues twice its size. For decades, that low-ceilinged space above the Thames has been a place where you could stand close enough to see the sweat on a saxophonist’s brow.

If you were there in the seventies, you might have caught George Melly in full voice. In the eighties, it was Humphrey Lyttelton holding court. The nineties brought a younger crowd who came for Courtney Pine or the loose, experimental sessions that spilled past midnight.

The room itself never changed much. Dark wood, a small stage, chairs packed tight. The sound was always immediate, almost uncomfortably intimate. You could hear the valves click, the brushes whisper across the snare.

These days the Bull’s Head still books live music most nights, though the names have changed and the audience skews older. The river outside still slides past the same way it always did. The roses along the towpath are at their peak now, if you fancy the walk down.

Who did you hear there?

Tell us who you saw at the Bull's Head, and when.

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The Bench

A different conversation about Richmond, every day.