Savill’s listing. It looks like it was marketed when Meatailer Limited was still operating:
“Entire property let to Meatailer Limited who operate 9 venues across London, Leeds and Brighton”
“Business unaffected by sale”
Mind you, it also says "The property is not … situated within a conservation area" and that was wrong.
Indeed. Don’t want to go too far into speculation but it seems likely that the purchasers’ main source of revenue is being residential/commercial landlords. They would certainly need more than the income from a shop on an outer council estate in Swansea to buy this pub. The article mentioned the ltd company that owns the shop, but otherwise there was no indication in the article that that converting it was the intention - indeed it specifically mentioned that it was a public house and (wrongly) that it was a going concern.
So it may be that the speculation is misplaced and they are actually just seeking to rent it as a pub and flats and secure the revenue. This would certainly be more financially prudent than a highly speculative, controversial and (as can be seen from this thread) likely vigorously opposed change of use application.
The other option is they intend to leave it empty for a while and then make a non-viability case for conversion but that’s likely a lot of time to tie up capital without income, and it would be pretty remarkable if that case was accepted given its location and history.
I don’t think MEATliquor went bust, but they reduced their sites to 3, two in Central London and the East Dulwich restaurant.
That car park ‘land’ was already developed as a fast charging EV location. I doubt that the investment that was made in those chargers was for a short term installation, so I’m guessing it was re-purposed by the owners, or bought by the company that now runs the charging site
They went into administration and one of the former founders bought the most valuable remaining sites apparently. To be fair they never really understood what they were doing with the pub when they acquired it; it was sort of half way between the old Dartmouth Arms and a burger chain. I really hope the new owners do as some suggest may be possible here and lease the pub out and focus on the residential side of things.
Looks like there are 6 RAW Charging spaces in the car-park. RAW’s business model seems to be leasing the equipment to landowners rather than purchasing land themselves.
I’m not invested in this enough to spend £7 on a Land Registry search to find out who owns the land!
I assumed the car park was still linked to the pub but that seems not to have been the case for a while (or at least not operated by the pub).
Thanks to Google Street View, until 2021 the car park sign said “Free Parking For Registered Vehicles Only. See car park signs for terms & conditions. PRIVATE LAND”.
At some point before September 2022 the signage changed to “NCP - This way to your new NCP car park. Ticketless parking via mobile app payment” with prices listed.
I don’t know when the EV bays were installed but May 2025 shows the gates closed with signs “Car Park Closed” I can’t see the logo clearly.
I really hope the whole neighbourhood resists this too. Happy to sign and join in whatever is needed too, including a placard protest. Placards could read…
“Pints, not Pringles!”
“Burgers, not batteries!”
“The Dead Hippie died for this? A One Stop?!”
And as for protest chants:
“One Stop, two Stop, three Stop, four — Forest Hill deserves much more!”
“Meat Liquor out, One Stop in — who thought that was a way to win?”
“No more crisps! No more sweets! We want pubs and proper eats!”
“Forest Hill says NO — we don’t want a One Stop show!”
The freehold for both the pub and I believe car park for years was Stonegate, the large pub freeholders. They had it during the last 3 iterations of the pub at least. They retained it even after MeatLiqour took the lease. I assume they have sold the freehold part relating to the pub and retained the freehold on the car park in order to build flats, which they seem to do a lot. This was from September 2025:
@PaulineLovesPens amen!!!
Forest Hill locals with money to spend will hang out and spend it East Dulwich and Peckham rather than on our high street which is a really depressing thought
I would love to see what the young entrepreneurs at Ancestrel (Stanstead Road) could do with a grown-up sized space like the Dartmouth Arms.
Balvinder Kaur one of the new owners of the Dartmouth Arms is also associated with a Post Office in Swansea.
How old is that? ‘Dunvant Stores Limited’ was dissolved in 2016.
Maybe they want to open a Post Office in Forest Hill? 
If the Dartmouth Arms does become a convenience store with an added Post Office, this may deflate some of the concerns about yet another similar shop on Dartmouth Road.
I personally think the old Boots site is better for this..
Zero architectural merit in frontage or interior
Salamander News has published an article on the Dartmouth Arms with some additional interesting details
