Historic London Pubcast
If you know London's pubs, then you know the history of London. Every pub has a story to tell... if you know where to look. Host, Eric Blair takes us on a journey across London's historic pubs. Along the way we'll get all the quirky, fascinating stories of the architecture, antiquity, legends, and personalities that make up London's unique pub scene. Equal parts travel, story telling, architecture, history, and social commentary, join The Historic London Pubcast community. Not just London Pub Crawl, lots of fun stories along the way!
Historic London Pubcast
Ep 26 The Seven Stars Pub & 3 Must-Visit Historic Pubs Near London's Royal Courts of Justice
Maybe the oldest pub in London, The Seven Stars is a great pub and has some fine pub neighbors as well
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Google map with pubs covered in previous episodes pinned, courtesy of Andy Meddick:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/4/edit?mid=12c-WKa3XiT1qTLydK8psZocUR7Y_Wes&usp=sharing
Or TinyURL: https://tinyurl.com/bduca5dv
The following resources are referenced or quoted frequently in these episodes:
- Ted Bruning -- Historic Pubs of London (ISBN 978-0658005022) and London By Pub (ISBN 978-0658005022)
- Wikipedia
- https://londonspubswherehistoryreallyhappened.wordpress.com/ by Ann Laffeaty
Additionally, the following resource(s) were used / quoted in this episode:
The Seven Stars:
Fay Maschler article: https://www.standard.co.uk/going-out/restaurants/roxie-raises-the-steaks-7386702.html
60 Minutes video: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/england-pubs-covid-19-60-minutes-2022-12-25/
https://www.thesevenstars1602.co.uk/
https://www.layersoflondon.org/map/records/the-seven-stars
The Old Bank of England:
https://www.mcmullens.co.uk/local-pub/old-bank-of-england/
https://londonist.com/pubs/pubs/pubs/old-bank-of-england
https://www.londonpubexplorer.com/back-from-the-dead/the-old-bank-of-england
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Bank_of_England
Claire Market:
https://www.layersoflondon.org/map/records/clare-market
George IV:
https://londonpubsgroup.camra.org.uk/viewnode.php?id=99555
https://whatpub.com/pubs/WLD/16662/george-iv-inn-london
https://enchantedisle.blog/2008/05/25/george-iv-portugal-street-london-wc1/
Intro music:
Website: https://historiclondonpubcast.com/
E-mail: hosteric@historiclondonpubcast.com
Welcome to this episode of The Historic London Pubcast. I'm Eric Blair, and I'd like to take you on a journey through the rich history of London's iconic pubs. My goal is to share with you my passion for the great old pubs of London. I want to give you some facts to help you appreciate the history of these hallowed establishments mixed in with some fun stories that make it all go down as smooth as a well poured pint.
Today we are going to chat about several pubs in the Holborn area around Lincoln Fields. Let me start by putting forward my favorite of today's pubs. That is the magnificent Seven Stars at 51 through 54 Carey Street. This pub claims to have existed before The Great Fire of 1666, and unlike others that make that claim, I fully support this contention by The Seven Stars.
The fire did not make it as far west as this area, and it is not disputing that the building does go back to the early 1600s. Lots were happening in this area back when and we can speculate that the pub saw it all, but all we can say with any certainty is that the oldest record of it being a pub dates back to 1753.
A note that the license was held by one Elizabeth Peake. So, it was a pub at that time and quite possibly carried a name similar to today, The League of Seven Stars. That name refers to the seven provinces of the Netherlands. Several sources report that the area was popular with Dutch sailors. In the 17th Century, the Fleet River was navigable and just a few blocks east. So why not take a name that attracted their business? Shakespearean performances were held in the nearby Middle Temple area in the early 1600s. So, if it was a pub back then, The Bard himself may have been an early patron. The street the pub is on, Carey Street, is named after George Carey, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, a Cambridge grad and a man with some military and political leadership credits.
But to me, the most interesting facts about Carey relates to his patronage of the Arts. He and his father were patrons of The Professional Theater Company in London, known as The Lord Chamberlain's Men. William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage were among the writers and performers of the company. In 1597, George Carey was invested as a Knight of the Garter, and it was said that the first performance of Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor was held to commemorate this occasion.
George died in 1603 at the age of 57. It was not clear whether the case of syphilis he suffered from, or the mercury administered to the sores that the disease produced actually killed him. Either way, not a great way to go. But hey, he did get a street named after him. But even that went awry a little bit.
Instead of Carey Street, people often called it Queer Street. Now, it's not what you think. Nothing to do with gay people. Wiki tells us that queer was a colloquial term referring to a person being in some difficulty, most commonly financial. So, Carey Street where London's bankruptcy courts were once located and started to be referred to as Queer Street, and as Queer Street, it did get a bit of recognition. In his novel Our Mutual Friend, Dickens entitled a chapter, “Lodgers in Queer Street,” about a corrupt moneylender plotting to bankrupt his friends. In the Sherlock Holmes story The Second Staying, Arthur Conan Doyle has one character tell another “It's lucky for you, my man, that nothing is missing or you would find yourself in Queer Street.”
Arctic Explorer Robert Falcon Scott's final diary contains a note, “We have only three days of food with us and shall be in Queer Street if we miss the depot.”
I can go on with quotes from the works of Agatha Christie, Evelyn Waugh, and D.H. Lawrence, but you get the idea. The Seven Starswalked along without much recorded history for decades, or you could even say centuries, but that changed when, around 2000, it was acquired by a flamboyant and dynamic Publican, one Roxy Beaujolais. Miss Roxy, I had the pleasure to meet on my last visit to The Seven Stars is a great Publican and the pub is very well run under her leadership. The website gives us some information on her background which I will draw from, but I also found an article published in The Standard in 2012 that provides some lively quotes as well.
It was written by Faye Mishler in a review of the opening of another of Miss Roxy's establishments, a pub restaurant called The Bountiful Cow. Here goes,
“Roxy Beaujolais married an ex-boyfriend of mine to whom I introduced her. So, this review of her new pub, The Bountiful Cow, comes with love and understanding. Roxy, born Jenny Hoffman in Adelaide, Australia, colonized Soho. She worked up from waitressing to the front desk at Ronnie Scott's before managing the Soho Brasserie in Old Compton Street and the Three Greyhounds pub in Greek Street. Her next endeavor was to open a pub of her own. The historic Seven Stars on Carey Street, behind the Royal Courts of Justice, which won Timeouts Best Pub award in 2003.”
Thanks for the review, goes on to say nice things about the new place, but let me return to Miss Roxy's flagship, The Seven Stars. The pub’s website gives us a few more bits about Roxy in the pub,
“In 2001, Roxy decided it was time to run her own joint. After searching for a suitable place around Soho, she and her Architect husband Nathan Silver ventured a field to Holborn. There they found the shabby inn, expertly managed and often closed, hardly noticed pub The Seven Stars and saw its possibilities. They bought the lease. The pub carried on under Roxy's new management, remaining open while her husband Nathan managed improvements, lengthening the main bar, making the stair behind it accessible to customers, creating a room for tables, redesigning the upstairs kitchen and toilets, building a dumbwaiter so that food delivery didn't have to compete with customers on the steep staircase. All was achieved in time for The Seven Stars 400th Anniversary Street party in 2002. In 2004, a small legal wig shop next door became vacant and available. It became the new West Wing and was tagged A Wig Box in recognition of its history.”
The pub's across the street neighbor is The Royal Courts of Justice, although the official entrance is over on The Strand. These are the senior courts of England and Wales, not to be confused with The Old Bailey, the criminal courts over to the east near The Viaduct Tavern. See the Episode Gin Palaces Number Two.
So, the legal circles. The wig box front window has examples of a couple of items that passed for fashion in the legal circles. Wigs became part of the legal dress in the reign of Charles the Second in the second half of the 1600s. Wigs became a part of a well-dressed man's fashion, and their individual style could show status and power. Where else better to exhibit power than in the court? So even though wigs went out of fashion in the public around 100 years later, the courts held on to the tradition, but things might be changing slowly. In 2007, Barristers no longer needed to wear a wig during civil and family law courts, and they are no longer required in the UK Supreme Court. But wigs are still required for criminal trials in the UK. Roxy was interviewed briefly by the American news Program 60 Minutes in their segment on the return of pubs after COVID.
I have referred to it before because Paul, the Publican of Turner's Old Star in Wapping, is also featured in the piece. We covered that great pub in The Angel with Two Wings Episode. The 60 Minutes video is linked in the notes. Brief though it was, you get a feel for Miss Roxy. Let me make a few other points as we wrap up our visit.
Roxy loves cooking and catering and has published a book entitled, “Home From the Inn Contented, A Cookbook of Simple Popular Pub Food.” There are posters from old movies around the pub. Most feature a lawyer theme in keeping with the location and improvement. Previously mentioned is the passage to the upstairs. This is a Grade II listed building, but Architect husband Nathan got the okay to put in a tight but functional spiral staircase up to the restrooms.
Tread carefully but do try it out. This is a cool feature. There's a tradition at The Seven Stars under Roxy's management to have a pub cat. The website shows several kitties that have had a job. They all have interesting names such as Tom Paine and Clement Attlee. Many times, they are sporting an Elizabethan ruffled collar that make them look quite regal. I believe the current office holder is a jet-black beauty named, “The General.” This is a small and charming pub, and it can get crowded at certain times, so plan your visit accordingly. The pub has clientele from the surrounding offices, so a mid-evening visit, say 8 or 9 p.m. after the office crowd’s departure have worked well for me. I know you'll love this pub just like I do.
Okay, let's be off. We are headed to two pubs. There are part of London School of Economics or LSE. It's about a five-minute walk and on the way, we will pass by a historic area known as Clare Market. Clare Market owes its establishment to one John Harris, the First Earl of Clare. In 1640 The Earl received permission to develop land in the family estate. John and his son built houses and roads, and in around 1657 a small market building. This was a good location in the market area, spread through the maze of narrow interconnecting streets lined by butchers’ shops and greengrocers. An open market was soon set up three days a week and thus Clare Market was born.
There's nothing really remarkable about this area. Other than it survived The Great Fire of 1666. The early 17th Century buildings that comprise it would normally have been demolished as London developed, but there was a reluctance to do so here because they had the attribute of surviving the fire. But by the early 20th Century things had become pretty slum like.
The City Council redeveloped the area in 1905, and as far as I know, there are only two survivors from the 1600s. The first one to mention is The Old Curiosity Shop at 14 Portsmouth Street. Interesting story here. The building does date back to the early 1600s, but the claim that the shop was the inspiration for the Dickens novel is almost certainly bogus. An article on The Dickens Museum website (see the notes), gives us the scoop. The building's occupant in 1867 was a,
“Dealer in books, paintings, old china, etc., had the words The Old Curiosity Shop placed over the front for purely business purposes.”
This information was from a letter published in 1883 by Charles Testament, the brother of the occupant.
Charles adds,
“Before my brother had the words put up, no suggestion had ever been made that the place was the venerable Old Curiosity shop immortalized by Dickens.”
But the deed was done, and the shop caught the fancy of Dickens fans and American Journalists published a literary tour of Dickens London in a popular American monthly, which included The Shop and the Dickens connection legend. That was enough for Dickens fans. It became a spot when fans made the Dickens pilgrimage, and when redevelopment came along after the turn of the century, public outcry saved the building. So, disguising itself as a Dickens relic meant that it survived when all the buildings around it were destroyed. I think Dickens readers could say that the brick-and-mortar version of Charles Darnay lived when all the Sydney Cartons around it didn't, and, like the characters in the book, did so by virtue of a little deception.
Okay, onto the pubs. The first one we come to is tucked away at Two Saint Clement’s Lane, Ye Old White Horse with the ‘The’ spelled, “Ye.” Be sure to remember that, because there are other White Horse pubs in London. Remember I said there were two surviving buildings from the early days? This is the other one. Records show a Victualer licensed at this address as early as 1790, because Clare Market was happening place on market days in the 1800s.
There were lots of pubs to quaff the thirst of shoppers. Ye Old White Horse stands for all its fallen comrades. Pub Blogger Ann Lafferty gives us this thumbnail description,
“Inside the Ye Old White Horse is somewhat less cozy than one might have hoped, with its spartan decor, leatherette banquettes and somber wood paneling, but the quaint original fireplace hewn into the bar adds some interest, as do the Victorian lamps and ornate ceiling.”
And it is a frank description, and I hope one that doesn't put you off. Antiquity, not Architecture, is the je ne sais quoi of this pub. Its 16th Century cellars are still in use, which adds more to its historic cred. Definitely worth a visit. Okay, let's pop over to the next pub round the block. Look around. We're at The London School of Economics.
The school specializes in the social sciences and was founded in 1895 by members of The Fabian Society, including famed Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It joined the University of London, and degree courses under the auspices of that university began in 1901. In 2007, the school began awarding degrees under its own name, rather than in the name of the University of London.
Famous alums include lots of heads of state, prime ministers and politicians from around the world. Also, George Soros and Mick Jagger, a very well-respected school and the owner of our next pub, The George IV. There was a pub here in 1825, but what we see today is from a rebuild in 1899 that was around the time of the big redevelopment of the area and the founding of LSE.
The pub has a solid Victorian appearance with Corinthian columns, ornate decorative moldings and cornices, and a patterned ceiling, and above the central bar is a large sign stating London School of Economics. Just in case you have a few too many and forget where you are. That nameplate was from an electric locomotive commissioned in 1985. I guess at that time it was thought that naming a train engine after the school was a worthy recognition.
Somehow, the school was able to get the nameplate at auction in 2007, and put it up in its current spot, displayed prominently above the bar. As for the locomotive itself, it's thought that it is still running around the country somewhere. This is a nice pub, and I always try to pop in when I visit The Seven Stars, which is just a bit away.
I think we might have time for one more pub while we're in the area. Let's walk back to Fleet Street as we do. Let's talk about the name or really the namesake of the last pub we visited, The George IV. He officially reigned from 1820 to 1830, but actually he had a lot of kingly power prior to his coronation due to his father, George The Third’s declining mental health.
We talked about poor old George three in the Episode covering the Queen’s Larder pub in Bloomsbury. George, for at least from what I can find from Wiki, was no credit to the royals quoting Wiki,
“George's rule was tarnished by scandal and financial extravagance. His Ministers found his behavior selfish, unreliable and irresponsible, and he was strongly influenced by favorites.”
Wow. I wouldn't like a bio summary like that, but further, we learned that unlike his father, he had numerous mistresses and several children out of wedlock. Again, from Wiki,
“George's heavy drinking and indulgent lifestyle had taken their toll on his health by late 1820s. George's last years were marked by increasing physical and mental decay and withdrawal from public affairs.”
Privately, a senior aide to the King confided to his diary,
“A more contemptible, cowardly, selfish, unfeeling dog does not exist. There have been good and wise kings, but not many of them, and this, I believe, to be one of the worst.”
Why, then, might you ask, would anyone name a pub after this fellow? To that question, I can only reply with a quote from Mark Twain that I have slightly altered a bit for this occasion.
“The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to make sense.”
And guess what? There are three more pubs in Greater London named George, the fourth one, West in Chiswick and two on the east side, but no time to ponder the unexplainable further. We have arrived at our final pub, The Old Bank of England,194 Fleet Street.
No question about this name. The building was constructed to be the Law Courts branch of the Bank of England, designed by prominent Architect of his day, Sir Arthur Blomfield. It was built in 1886, in what has been described as a “A grand Italianate style.” BOE moved out in 1975, and the building was refitted as a pub in 1994. The pub was run for a long period by Fuller’s and I think they are probably the firm that made the initial conversion to the pub.
If so, thanks, for you did a great job. Since 2013, this has been run by McMullen’s, a brewing and pub company that goes back 200 years. In addition to The Old Bank of England, they have about 130 other pubs in their stable. The website londonist.com offers that one could have a reasonable crawl in London just going to pubs occupying converted financial buildings, but they like this one the best.
Let me quote from their article,
“The Old Bank of England is the grandest of the lot. At bar level, you'll not find a more opulent ceiling anywhere in pub them and the wall paintings reward inspection. The best seats are to be found on the mezzanine level, where you can look down on the punters packed in below.”
I find that the londonist always has spot on advice when it comes to pubs.
The building has vaults that in earlier times were said to store gold bullion and even the Crown Jewels for a while. They were pretty much abandoned for the pub conversion, but one source implied that there is an initiative to convert them to panic rooms for those in the public that like that sort of entertainment. I adopt the philosophy of keep calm and sip on for my pub visitations, but that's just me.
So let me end here at our fourth pub by saying, I think you would enjoy a visit to The Old Bank of England for its lovely architecture and a visit to the three other pubs we covered for their unique features. I hope you've enjoyed today's chat about these gems. As I always say, please like, thumbs up, subscribe, and all that as you see fit.
My email is in the notes hosteric@historiclondonpubcast.com. I'd love to hear from you. Until next time then, Cheers!