ReviewJuly 5th 2015:
I've often passed this pub throughout my life - I remember it well as The Gypsy [sic] Queen in the 1970s - and usually on the opposite side of the road.
This was always a rather rough and scummy pub with unsavoury characters hanging around the door as described by Steve C below. Around 1990 the somewhat bizarre decision was made to take this pub still further down market by giving it an Oirish theme, calling it The Westport Inn and bedecking the fascia with green shamrocks. A quarter century later and common sense prevailed with the pub being given a more upmarket rebranding as The Bluebell. Due to tragic circumstances, this wasn't to last and it closed a few months later. The pub's potential however, had been revealed and it reopened under its original name in late June 2015 under the stewardship of the team team behind the very decent Grafton half a mile down the road.
The website shows just how much work has been done to the place since its Bluebell incarnation, so one can only shudder to think what it must have been like as The Westport Inn - twinned with Hannibal Lecter's dungeon perhaps? The pub has a rear staple-shaped bar with original bar back and clock in the parapet as well as a small metal gantry and features a tiled apron which resembles a piece of Bridget Riley's Op Art. The floor is bare boarded with the use of reclaimed and varnished Victorian boards - they look very good indeed and will only improve with age. There are taupe buckskin banquettes to the perimeter whilst furniture is classic and conventional; the right wall is bare brick and as part of the renovation now has two reclaimed Victorian tiled fireplaces. On the table there are wang peonies and tea lights in glass holders. Lighting comes from shallow tin-shaded lights with filament bulbs suspended from the ceiling. Overall the interior is surprisingly airy. Somewhat ominously, there's a large projector TV though it was showing the Hampton Court Flower Show with the sound off. Nevertheless, it wasn't at all attractive, especially given the effort piled into the rest of the pub and gave the place a bit of a naff Wetherspoon's feel; the stereo played, though noise levels were muted. The crowd in here is generally young(ish) and quite hip though I did spot a handful of what I took to be old school locals, bemused at the display of interior cleanliness and the sight of people with teeth that didn't resemble Stonehenge. Out back there's a landscaped beer garden. The lavatories are good.
Beverages? A large array of craft offerings and premium lagers - this is also a bottle shop. Several pumps were present but only one was serving - it's early days so perhaps the other pumps will be brought on line in the near future. My pint of Ubu's Purity cost £4.10 which is very hefty indeed given the area and it was warm and a bit flat; service was friendly and efficient.
Overall I liked this pub a lot, though it has taken decades for me to be tempted in. I am concerned though that the projector will be used for live sport - this is no longer the type of pub that is going to attract the sports TV viewer and if management is tempted to go down this route, I fear they may well lose their newly acquired fashionable and affluent client base. To this end, I'm deducting 3 points for the TV - the pub gets them back when the awful projector is consigned to a skip. Otherwise it's certainly worth a visit and indeed I'd go so far as to say it's worth a detour.
Update 23rd August 2018:
A repeat visit the other night and I was served a good pint of East London Brewing Company's Jamboree which was still an expensive £4.10, a price I wouldn't expect to pay in either Hampstead or Notting Hill, so why so high here? Three points reinstated due to the raised projector screen but I wasn't impressed with the site of a TV screen behind the bar displaying a 16-image montage of all the pub's CCTV cameras; is this a pub or a supermax prison? I also wasn't impressed with the gaggle of chavvy young women swearing and shouting at each other from the bar to the pavement - couldn't they drink in the nice beer garden provided? So then, three points taken back due to Big Brother watching me and the loud mouthed girls.
Update:
Paid £3.00 for a half of Purity's Mad Goose the other, day which is obscene.