Drug taking, couples making love while others look on, a heavy mob armed with iron bars, filth and stench, foul language, that is the scene inside the hippies’ fortress in London’s Piccadilly. The People
Three rather wimpy 'Hells Angels' guarding 144 Piccadilly September 1969
At around 11.30am on Sunday 21st September 1969, a slightly-built Chief Inspector convinced the hippies inside the squat at 144 Piccadilly to lower an improvised wooden drawbridge so the police could help a seriously ill person inside.
The drawbridge came down and Chief Inspector Michael Rowling flung himself bravely across the barricaded opening to establish a bridgehead. It was an old trick, no doubt played out a thousand times back in the (medieval) day, and sure enough a police-whistle shrilled and seemingly from everywhere a hundred policemen charged over the drawbridge, drawing their truncheons as they got in through the door. Unfortunately they trampled all over the Chief Inspector in the process.
The raiding policemen had to brave slates, water filled bowls, bricks and one petrol bomb raining down upon them but it was only four minutes after the police charged in, a policeman was seen at the top of the mansion raising his truncheon in triumph. Not long after and to cheers for the thousands of onlookers on the street below, the Hells Angel’s flag was lowered from the flagpole.
As he was being led outside by the police, Dr John, the ’so called’ leader of the squatters, screamed at the press and the crowds in the street;
“They conned us! They tricked us!”
The nice round number of exactly one hundred people were taken to custody with twenty-seven adults and three juveniles arrested for offences ranging from assault to drug possession. There were no bad casualties although many of the occupants complained of being beaten by the Police (no video phones or palm-corders in those days). The occupation of Hippydilly was over, just three weeks after it had begun.
"We don't want to split the scene, man."
The party at Hippydilly.
This is far out, man. Do you think I can fly dude.
September 1969 was the height of the anti-hippy scare-mongering from the British press and they fell upon the siege at 144 Piccadilly with glee. The Daily Telegraph noted that on the eviction of the squat a hospital governor had vomited, a police-woman became ill, and a policeman refused to allow his dog into the squat, all ‘because of the filth’. Most of the tabloids had sent in undercover reporters into number 144 and the News of the World described the squat as:
‘Lit only by the dim light of their drugged cigarettes’.
While the People had declared under the headline - HIPPIES – DRUGS – THE SORDID TRUTH!
Drug taking, couples making love while others look on, a heavy mob armed with iron bars, filth and stench, foul language, that is the scene inside the hippies’ fortress in London’s Piccadilly. These are not rumours but facts, sordid facts which will shock ordinary decent living people. Drug taking and squalor, sex – and they’ll get no state aid…
The squatters at 144 were originally organised by a group of young people who called themselves The London Street Commune and led by the almost mythical Dr John (he may have been Phil Cohen who was part of the anarchist group King Mob). The organisation had been created to help find somewhere for hundreds of hippies that were sleeping rough in London’s parks to stay overnight.
144 Piccadilly, an empty five-storey disused mansion at Hyde Park corner seemed an ideal place to set up a communal squat.
A bored hippy bemoaning the lack of facilities and furniture: "I think I'll crash on the floor, man."
"I think I'm gonna blow this place, man. I've lost my shoes."
At one point during the siege some media-incited skinheads (then as now the tabloids were skilful at contriving stories) turned up in the night to shoot air-guns at the squatters. They must have been so shocked and surprised when suddenly hundreds of incongruous water-filled carpet boules, thousands of which had been stored in the empty building prior to the take-over, started raining down upon their shaven heads.
Skinheads had started to become more and more popular as a sort of tough working class alternative to to the ‘love and peace, man’ image of the middle-class hippies. The heavy carpet boules thrown by the hippies from several storeys high (while underneath a graffitied sign saying ‘We Love Peace’) easily defeated the skinheads and their air-guns. The skinheads attempt to invade the squat was quickly over.
We Love Peace, man, unless skinheads are involved.
Skinheads off to get their airguns for some hippy hunting
Water-filled carpet boules. Deadly weapons.
On the 20th September (the day before the police raid on the squad) there was a free festival at Hyde Park. It was the third of free festivals in the park that summer and admittedly the one that has been forgotten (the first featured the super group Blind Faith and the second was the famous Stones performance after the death of Brian Jones). The third festival featured Soft Machine, the Deviants, Quintessence, Al Stewart and the Edgar Broughton Band who as usual finished with their fans favourite ‘Out Demons Out’.
Many of the visitors to the Hyde Park concert would have come from out of town and many of them went to visit 144 Piccadilly which had been extensively in the news by that time. Many of them must have tried to stay the night there, not having anywhere else to stay, and must have unfortunately been caught up in the raid the next day.
Hyde Park audience 20th September 1969
Hyde Park, man.
When the police raided the squat, after a high court order to leave had been ignored, most of the onlookers, many of whom had been there overnight, cheered. The developer Ronnie Lyons (infamous for inventing the industrial estate) was seen going into West End Central Police Station and donating £1000 to police charities in appreciation of a good job done in getting rid of the hippies from 144 Piccadilly.
144 Piccadilly stayed empty for three more years until it was knocked down, despite being listed, in favour of a huge modern luxury hotel called Hotel Intercontinental Park Lane which still, unfortunately, stands on the corner of Park Lane and Piccadilly today. If you feel like staying there it did have a 63 million pound refit only three years ago. I’m sure its very good value at £329 for their cheapest room.
A hippy being escorted from the premises.
We are the writing on your wall
Edgar Broughton Band – Out Demons Out
Fairport Convention – Genesis Hall
Tags: hippies, police, siege, sixties, skinheads, squats, squatting
Love a couple of the captions:
A bored hippy bemoaning the lack of facilities and furniture
We Love Peace, unless skinheads are involved
Those wimpy Hells Angels remind me of comments made by The Rolling Stones after the extremely not-wimpy American version of the pool cue wielding Hells Angels caused chaos at Altamont after they were hired for security, something along the lines of “Well, we knew some of the London Angels, they were cool, so…..” Ah, 1969.
on the squatting theme, here’s a load of nice pics of frestonia, a squatted community which declared itself independent of the uk and set itself up as a country. http://tonysleep.co.uk/frestonia
Nice photos and article.
I spent my earliest years in Holborn and often remember seeing hippies around the West End on trips with my mother and to visit an uncle who worked at Swann & Edgars department store on Regent Street.
The ‘Dilly early on had a reputation for attracting ‘drop outs’ (as they were known then) because of the 24-hour chemist. The bogs at Piccadilly Circus tube were said to be the first to have blue light bulbs to help prevent vein-related activity.
I was there with my mate Terry Sansome, we fought off the various invaders with volleys of those water-filled balls and our war flags flew above us, representing what we were all about: the black of Anarchy, the red flag of Revolution, a pair of ladies nickers and a teddy-bear.
Venceramos …!
The three “wimpy” men in your first photo are not Hells Angels, not by a long shot. They are British “greasers,” a late 1960s adaptation of bike boys from the earlier “Mods and Rockers” era. These so-called angels, who also policed Hyde Park at a free 1969 Rolling Stones concert, were mislabeled Hells Angels by the British Press, which, at the time, wouldn’t have understood the difference.
As for the Hells Angels at Altamont? They were authentic. No wimps.
You should probably re-caption that photo before a real Hells Angel sees it and takes offense.
Actually the Hyde Park “greasers”/”rockers” working “security” at the Stones concert were calling themselves “Hell’s Angels” but they were not affiliated with the American club, merely posers. The first official U.K. Hell’s Angels chapter was not founded founded until July, 30, 1969
I was only 12 and was living up north but I remember being fascinated by news reports of the ’siege’ on TV, so I’ve googled it and found this excellent page. It’s still a fascinating period generally. Do I remember a news report of skinheads from Manchester, in town for a football game, stopping off there to jeer/stir up trouble? Or am I imagining that? Anyway, very interesting, thanks.
was at the Park and two purple microdots later we were raving in Picadilly!Happy memories
Shame there’s not more pics. The guy sitting on the wall playing the guitar with the chick on a blanket beside him is Coventry Johnny Thats the only name I know for sure.
Somewhere theres a pic that appeared on the front page of the Telegraph of two twin chicks on the balcony. That was Sally and her sister. Their Father was waiting when they finally made it home. He took the Telegraph !
Yeah I remember when I was 15/16 working at the post office in Holborn and seeing the squat from the top of the 38 bus as it left Park Lane…took me back 40 odd years..nice one..
Noted film diector Sam Fuller wrote a novel based on the squat entitled “144 Picadilly”. It’s an interesting curio; dated, but with the usual Fulleresque brio. Fuller himself is the protagonist in the book. Of course, he manages to shag the most fetching hippie in the squat and smoke many cigars while getting to know the wild youth of London. Thank you for this wonderful blog.