Ep 43 Cheers To Limehouse Builder of Cities & Launcher of Empires

In this episode, we’re back to looking at some riverpubs, this time in Limehouse, along with some area pub history and  a great area pub just inland.

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Google map with pubs covered in previous episodes pinned, courtesy of Andy Meddick:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1xXDGJSfJIUy2gw_6uCASi-C45FpOg_M&usp=sharing

Or TinyURL:  https://tinyurl.com/4xhc8w2s

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

Additionally, the  following resource(s) were used / quoted in this episode:

Limehouse Area History:

https://alondoninheritance.com/londonpubs/house-they-left-behind/

https://www.londonpicturearchive.org.uk/view-item?i=122172&WINID=1749070788344

https://zythophile.co.uk/2010/10/04/taylor-walker-the-brewery-name-that-just-wont-die/

The Grapes

Tim Hampson, London’s Riverside Pubs – ISBN: 9781504800211

Ian McKellen history:  https://www.thegrapes.co.uk/history.php

The Narrow (Bread Street Kitchen)

https://camra.org.uk/pubs/bread-street-kitchen-on-the-river-limehouse-155226

The Star of the East

https://boakandbailey.com/2022/08/the-star-of-the-east-a-surviving-limehouse-gin-palace/

https://www.londonpubexplorer.com/back-from-the-dead/the-star-of-the-east

https://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/39/39194/Star_of_the_East/Limehouse

James Potts & Sam Cullen, What’s in a London Pub Name, ISBN 9781854144713

Intro Music:  Vivaldi - Spring Allegro by John Harrison w/ the Wichita State University Chamber Orch.

Photo:  Reading Tom

Website: https://historiclondonpubcast.com/

E-mail: hosteric@historiclondonpubcast.com

Transcript

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.

The episodes on the pubs along the river seem to be the most popular with listeners, so let's give the folks what they want. Today we're in Limehouse to check out two river pubs and we finish with a nice one that's still in Limehouse, but a bit away from The Thames. Let's start first talking about the area of Limehouse.

The name goes back to the lime kilns, or lime oast, as they were called in Middle English that once dotted the riverside stretch. You can see how lime oast gradually softened into Limehouse. Now don't confuse that with the lime in your gin and tonic. The lime you're talking about here came from limestone rock or chalk, often shipped up from Kent, which was burned down in these kilns to make mortar and plaster for a rapidly growing London.

Before it became a maritime hub, Limehouse was feeding the city's appetite for buildings. There's a mention of these kilns as far back as 1335, but Limehouse didn't stay in the lime trade for long. Its location was simply too valuable. As London's global trading ambitions surged, the port upriver became jammed, and the industries began spilling downstream. Limehouse was perfectly placed along The Thames, transformed into a support center for seafaring Britain. So, the kilns faded and the rigging rose.

By the 16th and 17th century, Limehouse was alive with shipyards and all trades that clung to them. Rope works, sail lofts, mast houses, chandlers. It was a place where goods, gossip and cigars all passed through. The Limehouse Cut, an early canal and later Limehouse Basin, connected river traffic with the inland canal network, turning the area into a busy freight junction. Goods from far-flung places came ashore here, and Limehouse earned its place on the maritime map.

It must have been a raucous, cosmopolitan spot in its prime, a place where you might grab a drink next to a Turkish merchant, a Norwegian sailor or a returning English captain. Someone like Christopher Newport, for instance, born right here in Limehouse in 1561, Newport came up through the ranks and ended up a Master of the Royal Navy. He was a privateer, which is to say he had a license to pirate. He spent years raiding Spanish treasure ships in the Caribbean, and he even lost an arm in the process, but carried on sailing with the hook. Would you expect any less?

Newport's real legacy, however, was Jamestown. In 1607 he led the fleet that carried the first English settlers to Virginia. He commanded the HMS Susan Constant and kept the struggling colony alive, with repeat crossings of the Atlantic. In between those long voyages, well, Limehouse was his home, and it's not hard to imagine him leaning on the bar of a riverside pub, swapping stories, ordering another round. Pity we missed you, Captain Chris. I imagine you had tales worth hearing.

So, lots of folks from lots of places walked the streets of Limehouse. Limehouse once held the distinction of being London's first Chinatown. From the late 1800s into the early 20th century, a small but vibrant Chinese community, mostly Cantonese sailors and dock workers, settled around the streets near Penny Fields and Limehouse Causeway. They opened cafes, laundries, lodging houses, often catering to seamen from around the world. It wasn't a large population, but it left an outsized impression on the London imagination. The impression, though, was shaped less by fact and more by fiction writers like Sax Rohmer, creator of the villainous Doctor Fu Manchu, painted the area as a full Grinch den of opium, grime and mystery. It was rather taken to the extreme, with Limehouse cast as a sort of shadowy other London in pop novels and films.

The reality was quieter. A tight knit, working class community trying to get by in a tough port town. The original Chinatown faded after heavy bombing in the Blitz and later redevelopment. Of course, all the traffic from faraway places was great for business, but it could have a downside too. In February 1832, the first London case of cholera was recorded here in Limehouse, thought to have arrived from Hamburg via India.

The first epidemic killed over 800 people, and the waves that followed in the 1840s through 1860s would claim tens of thousands. It was Doctor Snow we discussed in our Soho Part 2 Episode who proved the waterborne cause a key to eventually eradicating it from London. He now has a pub named after him over in Soho, and deservedly so. So, if you think Limehouse’s economy was buzzing in Victorian times with the Empire expanding, you'd be right. But like the George Harrison album says, “All things must pass.”

Limehouse’s stock declined in the mid-twentieth century, outpaced by container shipping and new transport routes. By the 1960s, the wharves were quiet, the warehouses empty and the maritime community scattered. But regeneration came in the 1980s and with it a new life, mostly residential, now with converted warehouses and glass balconies overlooking where cargo used to land.

Still, a few old pubs remain - places that hold on to the ghosts of Riggers and Captains passed, and we're about to visit a couple of them. So, let's raise a glass to Limehouse. Builder of cities, launcher of empires. And still a good place for a pint.

Okay, to prove that let's start at The Grapes, 76 Narrow Street. CAMRA says,

“The Grapes is one of London's oldest surviving riverside pubs, dating back to the early 1700s and some climbing even earlier. It was called The Bunch of Grapes until 1938, when the name was simplified to just The Grapes. It's a small pub, but what you would expect - narrow dark wood all around with a rear terrace that juts directly over The Thames offering a close upriver view.”

The book London's Riverside Pubs sums it up this way,

“Its interior is a quintessential English pub with bare floorboards, a collection of well-used saddles, chairs, tables and walls adorned with a collection of old prints, plates and curios. At the back there's a small but impressive wooden veranda overlooking the river, from which drinkers can really see the power of The Thames.”

Dickens, in his book “Our Mutual Friends” includes a riverside pub named, “The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters.” Many sources, including the pub's website, claim Dickens based the fictional pub on this real one, The Bunch of Grapes, as it was then called. Ted Bruning, with his usual thoroughness, effectively says, ‘Not so fast’! In his book Historic Pubs of London, 

“There's a great argument among taproom intellectuals as to whether Dickens based his fictional pub on The Grapes or the Prospect of Whitby just upriver. It's generally considered that as The Grapes is in Limehouse, The Grapes has it, although the pub Dickens described seems far larger than today's long, narrow two bar tavern.”

Maybe it's a composite meringue of artist imagination founded on the thinnest biscuit base in actuality.  On one point, The Grapes, in the Dickens pub, the porters agree. Like the latter, the former is,

“Long settled down into a state of pale infirmity. In its whole construction it has not a straight for or any hardy straight line, but it has outlasted and would yet outlast many a Spruce Year public house.”

Historic England (the folks that hand out the Grade II listings) evidently agree. In 1973, they awarded the prize to The Grapes, citing its rare surviving Georgian features, narrow frontage, exposed beams and crooked staircases. All pictures taken from the river looking back at The Grapes, show it was squeezed in there. Snug up to the building immediately to the west – the Harbor Master's office. You can't get more of a salty sea dog atmosphere than that.

Those Listeners who checked out our Peckham Part 1 Episode heard me compliment The Ivy House for providing a great history of their pub on the website. Compliments also go to The Grapes. They link a brief history of The Grapes, written by their famous co-owner, actor Sir Ian McKellen.

Let me draw from Sir Ian's piece. He writes,

“The Grapes, originally, the Bunch of Grapes, has stood on the pebbled Limehouse Reach for nearly 500 years. In 1661, Samuel Pepys diary records his trip to Lime Kilns at the jetty just along from The Grapes. In 1820 the young Charles Dickens visited his godfather in Limehouse and knew the district well for 40 years.

In the back parlor there's a complete set of Dickens for further reading. Other popular writers have been fascinated by Limehouse. Oscar Wilde and Dorian Gray. Arthur Conan Doyle, who sent Sherlock Holmes in search of opium, provided by local Chinese immigrants, and more recently, Peter Ackroyd in Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem. 

Narrow Street also is associated with many distinguished painters. Francis Bacon lived and worked at Number 80, Edward Wharf at Number 96, and Whistler painted a Nocturne of Limehouse. The Grapes survived the Blitz bombing of the Second World War and retains the friendly atmosphere of a local for Limehouse residents, where visitors are always welcome in the bars and upstairs room.”

Thanks, Sir Ian. It's a lovely pub to sit back in and watch the river flow.

Across Narrow Street from the pub is some interesting history as well. Shooting off from Narrow Street is a street called Rope Maker's Fields. On the north side of the street is a row of brick flats that ends with an older style building at street Number 27. Before the war, there was a row of older houses ending with Number 27, but 27 was not a house, it was the Black Horse pub. Like all the houses in the row, it was built in the 1850s. World War Two bombing destroyed all the houses in the row except for Number 27 - the pub. The new flats that exist today were built in the mid-1980s, and the pub underwent restoration at that time. During the rebuild, with the pub building standing bravely at the end of the row of desolate houses, the phrase, ‘The house they left behind” was painted prominently on the west side of the building. Thus, The Black Horse gained a flashy alternate moniker. 

ALondonInheritance.com has a nice section on this, complete with then and now pictures. See the link in the notes.

“The pub in a previous build goes back to 1807. It made the newspapers a few times over the years. The unfortunate landlady experienced a sudden death in 1842, right in the pub, and the pub was several times mentioned as the organizing point for rowing competitions. In more recent times. Christopher Dunhill, the heir to the Dunhill tobacco business, was stabbed in the pub and the landlord was wounded. Three men entered the pub with “Intention to murder both men.” At the time of this report, it appears that both victims would recover. No word on whether the culprits were found.” 

Sadly, the pub closed in around 2008 and was eventually converted into a house and a posh one at that. It reportedly sold in 2018 for a tidy 2.5 million pounds. If you proceed a couple of minutes east on Narrow Street, you will come to an intersection with a street called Barley Corn Way. This was the southwest corner of the plot where the Barley Mow Brewery used to reside. Founded in 1730 by several investors, including a man named Richard Hare, the brewery was in the Taylor Brewing Group, later Taylor Walker, by around 1800. It was rebuilt in 1889 and continued to operate into the 20th century.

When it came to producing beer, this facility did it all. It housed mills, Marston's coppers, fermentation tanks, yeast presses, cold stores, racking floors, and a bottling plant. Nearby was Brewer's Wharf, from which the beer was exported to the USA, Australia and India routes. Bottled and shipped out all in the same place. The brewery's official name was Taylor Walker and Company Limited Brewery, but it was known commonly as the Barley Mow Brewery, supposedly after the pub that we would be talking about a little later.

The brewery was badly damaged during World War Two, sold along with the rest of Taylor Walker to Ind Coope in 1959. They were mainly interested in getting Taylor Walker's pubs, so they closed the brewery in 1960, and it was demolished a few years later.

Remember I mentioned that the brewery got started through the efforts of a guy named Richard Hare back in the 1700s? Well, Richard had five sons. One became a sea captain; one joined the church. I'm not sure what the rest did, except for the youngest, Robert here, who became a beer brewing man like his dad, and specifically like his dad, a brewer of Porter. Robert left Limehouse in around 1770 and emigrated to America with a gift from his father of 1,500 pounds, and, it appears, a notebook of Porter brewing recipes.

Soon he was brewing in Philadelphia, producing Porter, thought to be the first in America. The business was an instant success. George Washington became very partial to Robert Harris Porter and would send his carriage from Virginia to Hare's Brewery in Carlisle Hill Street, Philadelphia, to pick it up. In 1776, Robert was described in a letter written by John Adams, later the second president of the United States, as,

“The famous brewer of Porter, who is carrying on that business here with great reputation and success and on a very large scale.”

So, my fellow Yanks, if you were enjoying a nice Porter in your favorite brew pub on this side of the pond, remember it all started with a westbound sailing ship and a bunch of recipes, both coming from Limehouse.

Okay, there's one other pub on the river at Limehouse and it has a rather convoluted history. It starts with the pub named The Barley Mow at 133 Narrow Street, about a two-minute walk east of The Grapes. 

Records show this pub operating by 1809. It became the tap house for the Taylor Walker Brewery right next door. It closed around 1960, around the time the entire brewery was shuttered, and like the brewery, was demolished.

Okay, with that information under our belt, let's take a six-minute walk west down past The Grapes and keep going to 44 Narrow Street. This building was the former house of the Limehouse Basin gatekeeper, constructed in the early 1800s, and is situated on the entrance of the gates to Limehouse Basin. Limehouse basin is a three-kilometer water passage that links The Thames to two of Britain's inland canals, dug in around 1820. It was enlarged over the years, so reasonably large ships could come through from the river and make their way up the canals, where goods could be loaded or unloaded from canal barges.

Cargoes handled were chiefly coal and timber, but also ice and even circus animals and Russian oil. In the First World War, submarines and sailing ships delivered cargoes there until the Second World War. The commercial use of the basin eventually fell into disuse in the 1960s. So, as you might expect, this building has a great view of the river. Can we think of another worthy use for it?

Someone was way ahead of us at the end of the 1980s. It reemerged as a pub, taking the name of its fallen comrade down the street. The Barley Mow. Later it called itself the Narrow Street Pub, and finally just The Narrow. But name changes were not all that happened. In 2007, Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay purchased the pub, and it went Gastro. In other words, dining became a priority, and its traditional pub role was diminished.

In 2022. Ramsay's group did a refurbishment. After a four-month closure, it reemerged with another name change - Bread Street Kitchen and Bar Limehouse - a rebranding consistent with Chef Ramsay's Bridge Street empire of restaurants. 

CAMRA gives us a good description with a bit of sad news at the end,

“The bar area has a rustic feel with wooden floors and real fire. There is also a large conservatory affording fine views of the river Thames. Bar food is available in addition to the restaurant menu. Refurbishment and rebranding in late 2022, this is a restaurant where drinking alcohol, including draft and bottled beer, is only allowed when food is being consumed”.

I hate to see a pub turn up the gastro knob to 11 so that it's now a restaurant, but I guess whatever is necessary to keep this cool building and location going. So be prepared to eat something when you go and check out the reviews. Different people say different things about the dining experience, but no one is disappointed by the views.

Now, I wanted one more pub for a Limehouse story, but here's the rub. There just isn't another riverside pub that quite fits the bill. So, I've decided to go inland a bit, and I'll say up front. I haven't personally been to this one, but I think it has a great story. The pub is The Star of the East at 805A Commercial Road - about a 12-minute walk, mostly along the Limehouse Cut Canal.

Pub records go back to 1845, but the early records indicate it as a beer retailer, so it may not have been a pub until the decade or so after that. The website Boak and Bailey uncovered a couple of newspaper pieces about the pub in the 1870s. Clearly it was more than just a beer store at that point. It appears at the time there might have been a bit of a rough edge to some of the clientele.

This paragraph is from the Illustrated Police News of 1881. Now get ready. I think from the title of the publication, it indicates that they play up the true crime aspect a bit.

“Thomas Barrett and William Shannon, two rough looking fellows, were charged with violently assaulting Hicks (I think that was a local constable). Both prisoners have been convicted of violence, and a short time ago, Barrett was charged with being concerned with others in assaulting and intimidating a fellow workman. On Friday night, they entered The Star of The East Beer House, Commercial Road, Limehouse. In a state of intoxication and because their demand to be served with liquor was refused owing to their condition, they created a disturbance and refused to quit. Hicks was called to eject them, and on getting them outside, they both attacked him. Another constable came to his assistance and after a deal of trouble, they got the prisoners to the station.”

Okay, get them boys out of here and give me another pint. My nerves are shattered! In a lighter note, a snippet from The Chelmsford Chronicle of May 1878 tells of an attraction certain to increase pub business.

“There's now to be seen at The Star Of The East opposite Limehouse church, a very curious mummy. A female stated by medical men to be about 18 years of age, hair, teeth and nails perfect and what seems to be most unique - the hair plaited in falls over 2000 years ago. Mr. H W Baxter, proprietor of The Star of the East, who has purchased it for a considerable sum, affords every facility to visitors already numbering some thousands and daily increasing. It was first landed in Bullhead Wharf and visited by many.”

2000 years old, huh? No need to card her!

Okay, so what about the pub’s name? Potts and Cullens book on pub names (What's In A London Pub Name) tells us the pub is thought to be named after The Star of Bethlehem, which was signal of the birth of Jesus and was spotted by the Wise Men. The name also links back to Limehouse as Chinatown history, albeit a connection which may be more coincidental rather than deliberate.

With Limehouse changing all around, the pub just rocked along for another 150 years or so. But by the second decade of the new millennium, the old gal seemed a bit tired with just a few old patrons. This review from beerintheevening.com was posted in 2016,

“Dingy and quite tired, but a decent friendly welcome. There was a 21st birthday on and it looked like all the old faces of the manor turned out. Decent buzz, but I have no doubt it's very different at other times. Not sure I'd return.”

But then magic happens and that begins with M and that means money! This is drawn from London Pub Explorer's write up of 2019,

“Enterprise Inns took it on and launched a full-scale restoration. Not just a lick of paint, but a real labor of love. They brought back the glory inside and out. And here's the thing - it still feels like a pub. They kept the original bar restored, the wooden floors brought in just enough modern touches, lighting wood burners, gold trim to make it shine without scrubbing away its soul. Even the old carport outback has been reborn as a sunny courtyard garden. It's not a riverside boozer, but this stretch of Commercial Road has a proper local again. The pub has woken up.”

And - no more dismal reviews on beerintheevening.com for this pub. Three years after that sad review was posted in 2016, a new one appeared, and it described a totally different vibe,

“Recently given a very expensive makeover to turn this place into a destination gastropub and very swanky too. Four real ales, an upstairs dining room with views over Canary Wharf. Nothing like the ropey boozer of old.”

Yay! I told you this was a good story. Certainly worth checking out when in Limehouse. But before you ask, let me say I don't know what happened to the mummy.

Okay, there you have it. Limehouse’s two river pubs and one inland to boot. Got thoughts on today's journey or an area local we missed? We'd love to hear from you.

You'll find contact details and episode extras on our website at historiclondonpubcast.com.Or just drop us a line directly. Emails in the show notes hosteric@historiclondonpubcast.com

If you haven't already, do tap a follow or subscribe so you know when the next round's ready. Because as we like to say, 

“Every pub tells a story, if you know where to look”.

Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, Cheers!