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 33 Marylebone’s Pubs - Sherlock Holmes, Bank Heists, Pub Quizzes & Singalongs -The Barley Mow, The Golden Eagle, The Devonshire Arms
Some great pubs and stories from Marylebone: The Barley Mow, The Golden Eagle, The Devonshire Arms and more
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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:
Barley Mow
https://www.standard.co.uk/going-out/bars/the-barley-mow-pub-review-marylebone-b1175183.html
Horst A. Friedrichs & John Warland –Local Legends: The Hidden Pubs of London(ISBN 978-3-7913-8973-8)
Black Horse
https://www.marylebonejournal.com/articles/history-world-war-two-marylebone-pub
Golden Eagle
https://londonist.com/pubs/the-golden-eagle
Station Pubs and Victoria & Albert
https://vinepair.com/articles/train-station-bars/
Intro Music: Vivaldi - Spring Allegro by John Harrison w/ the Wichita State University Chamber Orch.
Photo: Ewan Munro
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.
Let me first say, and my frequent Listeners know this sometimes I struggle getting British pronunciations correct. I sought help from a friend who grew up in London for how to pronounce the area that we are discussing in this episode. And I think I have it correct. All right, maybe not. Hopefully it doesn't produce too many cringes. With that disclaimer, let's dive in.
Today we're going to talk about historic establishments in the London district of Marylebone, just north and west of Hyde Park. Let's start with a bit about the district's overall history. Marylebone was an ancient parish formed to serve the manors, that’s the landholdings of Leiston in the west and Tyburn in the east. The parish was in place by the 12th Century.
The name Marylebone originates from an ancient hamlet located near today's Marble Arch, on the eastern banks of the Tyburn River, where in 1400 a parish church dedicated to Saint Mary was built. The Tyburn River became incorporated into London's sewer system in the 1800s, and now flows totally underground. Since the 12th Century, the area has been synonymous with the Tyburn Gallows, where public executions regularly took place at the crossroads of the Tyburn River and the old Roman road.
Eager to distance themselves from the notorious gallows, the villagers took the inspiration from their new church and began to call the hamlet Saint Mary Burn, burn coming from the Anglo-Saxon word for a small stream. So, the name meant, “The stream of Saint Mary.” Over the years, Saint Mary Burn morphed into Marylebone. The history of this land goes way back.
It was mentioned in The Domesday Book that record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales, completed in 1086. The Knights Templar owned one of the two landholdings that we mentioned that comprise the area, lasting until the early 1300s, when they fell on hard times. It was traded back and forth between nobles and royals until it was developed in the 1700s.
There was no stopping the force of urbanization then and today it is considered very posh, offering a combination of elegant living, upscale amenities and a desirable location. Overall, a very prestigious area of London. There are lots of famous folks associated with the area. Artist J.M.W. Turner had what might be called his principal residence here for about 40 years, starting from 1812.
Elizabeth Barrett, later to be known as Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, lived at 50 Wimpole Street in the 1840s. Flash forward a century or so, and one, Paul McCartney, lived in that same building from 1964 to 1966. It is said that John Lennon wrote, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” on the piano in the basement. Wow! Must have been something in the water.
Arthur Conan Doyle opened his Ophthalmology practice at Number Two Devonshire Street in 1891, but he succumbed to his creative side as well in Marylebone. His famous fictional character Sherlock Holmes lived a few minutes west. At 221 Baker Street, still in Mary Lemon. Just one street alone, Marylebone Lane had several well-known folks. Charles Dickens lived at Number 18 with his indebted father while working as a Court Reporter in the 1830s.
Edward Gibbon wrote much of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire while living at Number Seven. In the early 1770s, James Smithson wrote the will that funded the founding of The Smithsonian Institution in America while living at Number Nine. In 1826, Number Ten was briefly graced by Chopin in 1848, who found his apartment too expensive and moved to Mayfair. Wow! What would he think of the prices today?
Cambridge Spies Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess lived one street over at Five Bentinck Street during the Second World War.
All this history makes me a bit thirsty, doesn't it? Let's pop over to the most well-known of the historic pubs of Marylebone, The Barley Mowat Eight Dorset Street. Once again, Ted Bruning’s write-up in Historic Pubs of London provides a great overview,
“The Barley Mow is probably over 200 years old. In fact, it was probably a country pub which got overlooked when the whole area was developed. But it doesn't boast about it. The brass Gin tap and the price list are genuine and original, dating back to the early and mid-19th Century, when the take home sales of Gin were as significant as sales for consumption on the premises, and a spigot was far more convenient than a bottle.
But, The Barley Mow’s most distinctive feature, the pine paneled private booths on the side of the bar, are more recent. Plain though that they are, they belong to about 1890, when boxes of this sort enjoyed quite a vogue, and their construction has left isolated a third miniature bar, a tiny snug in the very back of the pub. Legend has it that the pub doubled as a local pawn shop, and the landlord let these booths out to mobile pawnbrokers.
A charming story, but given the respectable nature of the district, unlikely. The real genesis of the boxes lies in the Victorian mania for privacy, especially where liquor was concerned. Wealthy residential areas such as this normally included 1 or 2 pubs intended mainly for servants. Private boxes enabled master to sup alongside man without the embarrassment of being recognized. Ironically, these tiny boxes were the high watermark of the fashion of the 1880s and 90s for dividing and subdividing into even more intimate spaces.
From 1900, it became more common to open out small bars into large ones, and from the 1960s until the present day, the fashion was for the great barn-like one room bars.”
Thanks, Ted.
An article on The Standard, in which the title refers to The Barley Mow as, “A Classic Boozer,” gives us an additional descriptive paragraph,
“The Barley Mow in Marylebone, one of the most beautiful pubs in London, still independently owned and all the better for it. It was founded in 1791 and today boasts a frontage of rich and enduring red with colorful flowers, instruments above, glittering gold lettering. The sort of inspiration visiting Americans declare, “Oh look so cute! Like the Victorian times!” They would all enjoy the live music. Inside, charm abounds. Green banquettes are bookended by tones of darker wood. Beer signs cover the wall in neat patterns. High stools line the bar, and some of them might be hosting elegantly suited men and fancy ladies and everyone in between.”
londonhousehistories.co.uk gives us a bit more information, again mentioning the pub's most famous feature,
“Built in around 1791, it now is the oldest surviving pub in Marylebone. The interior retains its original match board paneling and, most notably, a pair of late 19th Century paneled drinking boxes. In the first part of its history, The Barley Mow was the center of the local community, providing a venue for public meetings and inquests, illegal gambling and sweepstakes. Its clientele has ranged over the years from Guardsman at the Lifeguard Stables in the 18th Century, to a hard core of swigging ad makers from nearby agencies in the 20th Century.”
The Guardsman the paragraph mentioned are The King's Lifeguards. You know, the fellows on horses that get well photographed by every first-time tourists to the Buckingham Palace area. They've had that guarding mission ever since Charles the Second took the Throne to reestablish the Monarchy back in the 1600s. Good to know they had a place to go for an after-work brewski, at least back in the 18th Century.
Right near the pub we have another famous resident, Charles Babbage, often called, “The Father of the Computer.”
Wiki describes him as,
“A mathematician, a philosopher, an inventor, and a mechanical engineer.”
Babbage lived and worked for over 40 years at Number One, Dorset Street, where he died at the age of 79, in 1871. Although he had his hand in lots of innovative pies, he is most remembered for coming up with a mechanical computer.
The full Wiki article on Babbage describes all the things he was into. Amazing. For example, did you know he was the guy who invented what we now call, “The Cow Catcher For Trains?” But of course, we are most interested in its quirks. He especially hated street music, and in particular the music of organ grinders, against whom he railed in various venues.
The following quotation from him is typical,
“It's difficult to estimate the misery inflicted upon thousands of persons, and the absolute pecuniary penalty imposed upon multitudes of intellectual workers by the loss of their time, destroyed by organ grinders and other similar nuisances.”
Wiki goes on to tell us that there are other irritations on the streets that got under Charles's skin. In the late 1860s, Babbage also took up the anti-hoop rolling campaign. He blamed hoop rolling boys for driving their iron hoops under horse's legs, with the result that the rider was thrown and very often the horse breaks his leg. Babbage achieved a certain notoriety in this matter, being denounced in a debate in The House of Commons in 1864 for commencing a crusade against the popular game.
Now, do you think that in 40 years of living seven street numbers away from The Barley Mow, he complained about excessive noise from pub goers at least once? Some things are almost certain. This is a great pub right in the middle of the city, with a nice neighborhood feel to it, but like I have said about other great pubs, it is had a near-death experience.
The pub book Local Legends The Hidden Pubs of London gives us the tale,
“As Marylebone became fashionable and land values upwardly mobile. The Freeholders tried to close The Mow down and convert it into residential use. The pub closed for three years until finally the righteous won, and the pub reopened. Hurrah for the god of good beer! With 14 investors chipping in, the future, certainly for the short term, has been secured. The reopening occurred in 2010.”
A personal note, I can remember seeking out the pub near the end of the evening in January 2008, only to find a dark walked up place. Peering through the window, you could see the tables and stools all still in their legs, up position after the final cleaning. Oh my, nothing sadder than a closed pub with an uncertain future. How wonderful is it that it has been given a new lease on life?
Of course, like all the pubs, it had to take time out in 2020 due to the pandemic. But even that comeback story has a happy ending. A 2023 article in The Independent gives us the details,
“The Barley Mow in Marylebone struggled to get their pub quiz back off the ground following Covid. But after Judi Dench (the famous Actress) agreed to record a quiz round last September, word got out. A year on, 14 teams a week pack out the pub not just for the 7 pound pint of Guinness, but to hear a different A-lister host the top ten round via video link. Michael Sheen asked about ten countries that end with the word ‘land’ from outside the Sydney Opera House, while John Lithgow delivered his question from a hotel lobby. Martin Freeman quizzed from what looked like his bedroom. Bryan Cranston, keeping with his Breaking Bad characters love of chemistry, also asked the packed audience for the top ten most common chemical elements in the human body. Other famous cameo quiz host have included Dominic West, Michael Pena, Jonathan Pryce and Ben Kingsley.”
The article concluded with some quotes about the quiz series from the pub's Manager Will Norris. Will said,
“The first guest we had was Judi Dench, because one of the guys who works here knows her daughter. Once you get Judi Dench, lots of people want to get on board. Now we've done 52 weeks of it and have another 42 weeks filmed and ready to go. Coming out of Covid was quite horrendous, so we were lucky to have our quiz night and our dart tournaments to keep us afloat. Our weekly quizzes are so busy that we have to kick out non quizzers,”
but Will relates, it's not all about the big names for their quiz events, “A huge part of it is creating a community feel,” he said, “The sense of community we have purposely cultivated is something pubs in London don't often have.””
Congratulations to The Barley Mow, the management, the staff and all the regulars. A great local in the heart of a big city.
Okay. Drink up. Out we go. Let's go a block west, catch Baker Street and walk about five minutes north. We'll stop not in front of a pub, but a bank, which has an interesting story to tell. This is Lloyds Bank, 185 Baker Street. Modern and spiffy looking now, but in 1970 it had a more traditional look. And that's when our story happened. The Baker Street Robbery Wiki gives us the full details. They began with a summary paragraph,
“The Baker Street Robbery was a burglary of safety deposit box at the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank in London on the night of 11th September 1971. The gang tunneled 40ft from a rented shop two doors away to come up through the floor of the vault. The value of the property stolen is unknown, but is likely to have been between 1.25 million pounds and 3 million pounds. Only 231,000 pounds was recovered by the police.”
If you are Sherlock Holmes fans, this story might seem a bit familiar. The burglary was planned by Anthony Gavin, a career criminal who was inspired by the Sherlock story, “The Red Headed League,” in which criminals tunnel into a bank vault from the cellar of a nearby shop. Gavin and his colleagues rented The Sack, a leather goods shop, two doors from the bank.
Think of that. The store, a chicken takeout place next to the bank, was occupied, so they went one more down, rented it, and tunneled under the chicken shop, eventually into the bank vault. They only worked on weekends to minimize detection, so their efforts took from the 23rd of August to September 10th.
As with all construction work and bank robberies, I suppose, they had to improvise a bit in the field. They ended up having to do some blasting to finally get into the vault, but they still remained undetected. Well, almost. Stay tuned.
Once inside, they emptied out 268 safety deposit boxes. The gang had posted a lookout on a nearby roof who was in contact via walkie talkie, and the radio transmissions were accidentally overheard by an amateur radio enthusiast. He called the police, who initially did not take him seriously, so he used a small cassette recorder to make a recording of the burglars’ conversations. The second time he contacted the police, they accepted what he was saying and began hunting for the burglars while the break-In was in progress. They searched 750 banks in an eight-mile radius, but failed to locate the gang.
Police did find the members of the gang soon after the break in. One of the burglars had signed the lease for the shop they use in his own name, and informers provided information that filled in the rest. By the end of the month after the robbery, police had arrested the three main crooks, including the ringleader. They were all eventually convicted and sentenced to 8 to 12 years in the lockup.
What a tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle and his creation, Sherlock Holmes. A robbery that could have been right out of his pen, all taking place within a two-minute walk of 221 Baker Street, Sherlock's digs in all the stories. After all the dust settled and the culprits put away, rumors persisted that some of the safety deposit boxes contained either: one - information relating to national security; or two - compromising pictures of Princess Margaret cavorting with a known gangster; or three - pics documenting child abuse by a prominent Member of Parliament.
No solid evidence emerged to support these allegations, so they were false, or, or really cover it up well, right?
Okay, let's check out a couple of historic Marylebone pubs that are not as famous as The Barley Mow. To do that, we walk south for about 15 minutes to the first one. The Golden Eagle. Along the way will be passing the location of a well-known pub of the past, The Black Horse, which once occupied what is now 109 Marylebone High Street.
An article by Tom Hughes in the Marylebone Journal, linked in the notes, gives us the fun facts, starting with an intriguing first paragraph,
“Marylebone was once the home to more pubs and anywhere in London. The area was known and not favorably as a venerable Eldorado of drink. Every street, every corner, every mews. It seems, had a boozer. Pub crawls are always fun, and Marylebone could test even the most ambulatory tipplers of London.”
It goes on to tell us specifically about The Black Horse pub.
“A pub has been on the site of 109 Marylebone High Street since 1790, and even from those early days was continuously called The Black Horse. In the beginning it had an anti-establishment reputation, hosting meetings for the London Labor League and the Marylebone Radical Association, but a redo in the 1890s cleaned it up. It was refurbished to conform to the neighborhood's, “Neo-Jacobean domestic revival.””
What the heck does that mean? I wondered? I found out that that style makes elaborate use of brick and stone arches and ornate detailing, large windows, and prominent chimneys. Sadly, The Black Horse just made it to the turn of the millennium. It closed in 2001, but we have our legends to hold on to and The Black Horse has a good one.
Let's return to the article,
“In 1944, Peter Wright of the Royal Canadian Engineers was a senior intelligence officer on the Supreme Allied Command Staff, planning what would become the D-Day invasion. While in London, he was quartered in Marylebone. On many of the long winter evenings in early 1944, Wright would make his way through the city's darkened streets for a pint at the Black Horse. Wright would take his glass to a corner table with his evening paper, but he soon found the conversation among the regulars of far more interest and greater potential. As everyone knows, chaps down the pub between them have more than enough ideas - how to run a football club, Transport for London and the Church of England. Thus, the quiet officer became fascinated by these friendly argy bargys.”
Side note, that's a term for those engaged in lively discussion or dispute. A bit of back and forth.
“Why aren't we doing this or that to win the war? In the view of The Black Horse drinkers. The war was being prolonged by incompetent leadership, by vested interest and other well-known obstacles to progress. Wright, without revealing his rank and role in the continuing hostilities, soon joined these nightly conversations. Back at work in his office. He couldn't stop talking about his secret Black Horse group. It became Wright's habit whenever he had a ticklish point of invasion planning to swing by the pub and get the regulars arguing about how they would carry out whatever thorny gambit was under discussion. Wright’s boss was General Morgan, the Chief of Staff for Dwight Eisenhower.”
Wow! Chief of staff to Ike. Now that's a high-ranking position!
“In his postwar memoirs, the General recalled that Peter Wright had an ebullient sense of humor. On a few occasions, Peter convinced the General to come along on an impromptu reconnaissance mission. General Morgan, in plain clothes with a big bowler hat, would enter alone and set off to the side, while Wright and his mates returned to their chinwag on tactics and strategy.
General Morgan remembered, “We listened naturally, without their knowledge, to the thorough representation body of opinion that congregated at this hospitable bar.””
The General's memoirs, “Overture to Overlord” weren't published until 1950, and when the Reporters from The Mail and Express invaded The Black Horse, they found some of the old regulars enjoying a peace time pint. They hadn't any idea that they had been of such importance to King and Country, while standing at the bar rail. With pride they remembered those conversations, and when shown General Morgan's photograph, someone said,
“Oh, sure, that's the bowler hat bloke!”
There's no plaque on the wall today at 109 Marylebone High Street, but The General’s words serve The Black Horse group well,
“Sound opinions are not the prerogative of those who are paid to give them. It's comforting to record that our operation was not launched without, at any rate, some consultation with that cornerstone of Western democracy, the English pub.”
Thank you, Tom Hughes and the Marylebone Journal, for bringing our attention to this true pub legend.
Okay, here we are at The Golden Eagle. This pub is often cited for its out-of-the-way location and lack of pretension. The Londonistdescribes it as,
“Something of a vanished London, and feels splendidly out of place in one of the most well-heeled parts of town. Stained windows and aged carpets mark this out as a pub that's avoided the gastro pitfalls others have fallen into, and indeed, there's not much food to speak of. There is, however, a piano in one corner of the pub, which takes up a bit of space in a place this small, but you can imagine the riotous nights it led in The Golden Eagle over the years. An ornate umbrella stand by the doors containing actual umbrellas is one of the unique aspects of this place, as are the hobbit height catacombs that lead to the toilets beneath.”
Thanks, Londonist! The building dates to the 1890s, but a pub has been here since 1842 and was initially called The Two Sisters. The little pub stands on the former bank of the River Tyburn. The pub is a Freehold, and from last reports is run by the same lady Publican, Gina Vernon, for over 30 years. Hey! Her son was born in the upstairs of the pub! Next to having a pub named after you, being born in a pub would be a true pub lover's most cherished credential. The pub maintains the tradition of singalongs, holding several each week.
marylebonevillage.com did a great article on the pub on its occasion of the 32nd Anniversary of Gina taking the helm. See the link in the notes. It has interviews with several of the long term staff, including the staff piano player Tony ‘Fingers’ Pearson. The folks interviewed look back on the last three decades and talk about the pub's recent history from a singalong perspective.
Look over the article if you have a chance. I think you'll be charmed. These are dedicated folks who love this pub and want you to love it too. No wonder the Londonist readers voted it one of the favorite pubs in Marylebone. Check it out, especially if your vocal skills are up to it.
Four minutes of walking away, over on Duke Street is The Devonshire Arms.This is another corner pub that goes back aways. First licensed in 1771, the current building, with its Portland stone frontage, dates from 1928. Inside there are some interesting wood paneling which extends into the Gents. I can't find out much else about the pub's history other than it's been around a while, and that's good enough for me to pop in and give it a look. I hope you agree. Okay, be careful though. There are at least five pubs in London named The Devonshire Arms, and about 25 pubs with that name UK wide. This, fortunately, is the only one on Duke Street.
I want to wrap up our Marylebone episode by talking about a subclass of pubs, Station Pubs. vinepair.com quotes Beer Writer Adrian Tierney Jones, who captures the essence of the station pub,
“There's a sense of energy and movement you don't get in your regular haunt,
he says.
The article gives us some perspective.
“For decades, bars at train stations had had a bad reputation, often seen as unsafe, even dangerous and widely considered the last place anyone would expect to get a great drink. But in recent years, train station bars and pubs have undergone a real renaissance. Some of the grittiest have been embraced for their status as authentic dives. Others have been completely renovated and modernized, emerging as night out destinations in their own right, allowing customers to have a top shelf drink or two before, during or after a journey.”
Thanks vinepair.com!
London has some great station pubs, but because of the constant need to modernize the transport business, many don't have a long years of operation and pedigree that we usually see in the pubs we cover here, doesn't mean they're not worth visiting though.
The one at Marylebone Station, The Victoria and Albert, is certainly in that category. It is, as you might expect from the name, a Victorian style pub. It gets much love from travelers who pass through it. Exactly when it came to be a pub is not clear. The station was built in 1899, and the pub architecture is consistent with that, but some sources say that it might have begun life as a lounge for first class passengers until becoming a pub, possibly as late as 1971. In any event, it is certainly worth mentioning in our Marylebone episode and worthy of a pop in when you are in the neighborhood.
So that brings us to the end of this episode. Thanks so much for listening. Be sure to like, thumbs up, subscribe, and all of that, as you see fit. Drop me a line in the email listed in the notes hosteric@historiclondonpubcast.com if the notion strikes you, and finally, be sure to check out our friend Andy's map of all the pubs covered in previous episodes. Again, the notes has that link.
Okay, until next time then, Cheers!