WEST END PUBS

 

See Also: PUBS; INNS & TAVERNS

 

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The Blue Posts

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There are several Blue Post pubs across the West End. Their name commemorates a series of blue posts that marked out the Soho hunting ground.

Location: 6 Bennet Street, SW1A 1RP. The name of this Blue Post pub dates back to at least 1667 and is reputed that its name commemorates the symbol of two poles that advertised a Bennett Street-based sedan chair hire business. (blue, brown)

22 Berwick Street, W1F 0QA (red, blue)

18 Kingly Street, W1B 5PX (orange, turquoise)

81 Newman Street, W1T 3ET (red, orange)

28 Rupert Street, W1D 6DJ (purple, grey)

See Also: COUNTRYSIDE; SOHO; SOHO Cries, Hunting

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The Dog & Duck

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The Dog & Duck is a compact gin palace of a pub. Its name is a relict of Soho's hunting heritage.

Location: 18 Bateman Street, W1D 3AH. (There is a Duck Lane to the west of the Berwick Street Blue Post.) (red, blue)

Website: www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/restaurants/london/thedogandducksoholondon

 

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Bradley's

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Bradley's was a sherry importing business that established a bar to enable its customers to sample its wares. This metamorphosed into a two-storey pub. The upper, first floor level on retained a Spanish theme but the street-level one, which was more pub-like, was known as The Spanish Bar.

Location: 42-44 Hanway Street, W1T 1UT (purple, grey)

Website: https://www.bradleyspanishbar.com

 

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The Coach & Horses

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The Coach & Horses pub is perhaps the most noted Soho watering hole of all.

Location: 29 Greek Street, W1D 5DH (purple, blue)

See Also: SOHO

 

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The Crown Inn

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The Brake brothers grew up above The Crown Inn on New Oxford Street, Holborn. William Brake established a business that sold poultry to hotels and restaurants. In 1958 he and his brothers Frank and William set up Brake Bros Food & Distribution. In 1972 they sold the poultry business and focused upon distributing frozen food. The company did much to increase both the availability and the quality of food in British pubs.

Location: The Crown Inn, 51 New Oxford Street, WC1A 1BL (orange, purple)

See Also: PUBS Food

Website: www.brake.co.uk www.theoldcrownpublichouse.com

 

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Gin Palaces

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Location: The Princess Louise, 208 High Holborn, WC1V 7EP (purple, orange)

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The Red Lion, 2 Duke of York Street, SW1Y 6JP (red, yellow)

See Also: PUBS Gin Palaces

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The Salisbury

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In the late 1950s and early 1960s The Salisbury was a favourite haunt of a group of actors, who established themselves first as the leading thespians on the London stage and then as international movie stars. It was not unknown for them to drink in the pub before, after, and sometimes - if they were acting in a theatre that was close by and they were not required to be on stage - during a performance.

Location: 90 St Martin's Lane, WC2N 4AP (purple, pink)

See Also: ESTATES The Cecil Estates, The Salisburies; GAS Suicide Ovens; WEST END THEATRES

Website: www.greeneking-pubs.co.uk/pubs/great-london/salisbury

 

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The Harp Tavern

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Location: 30-31 Russell Street, WC2B 5HH (red, brown)

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The City of Lushington

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The City of Lushington was a drinking club that was made up principally of actors. Its officers included a mayor and four aldermen, who presided over four wards that were called Juniper, Lunacy, Poverty, and Suicide. It met at the The Harp Tavern in Covent Garden.

See Also: FOLK TRADITIONS Folk Customs, The Mayor of Garratt

 

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The Lamb & Flag

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The Lamb & Flag pub is a timber-framed building that dates from 1623. The building's exterior is Georgian.

In the 19^thC the pub became known as The Bucket of Blood because of its association with boxing.

Location: 33 Rose Street, WC2E 9EB (orange, blue)

See Also: COURTESANS King Charles II's Mistresses, The Duchess of Portsmouth

Website: www.lambandflagcoventgarden.co.uk

 

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The Marquises of Granby

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The pub name The Marquis of Granby is derived from the Marquis of Granby (d.1770), who was the eldest son of the 3^rd Duke of Rutland. During the early stages of the Seven Years' War British troops did not distinguish themselves in the European campaigns that they fought in. The courtesy-titled general, who was bald, became renowned for charging into battle while not wearing a wig; this gave rise to the phrase 'To go at something bald-headed.' His vitality and his martial successes restored the reputation of the British Army as a fighting force.

Granby was given to helping his former non-commissioned officers set themselves up in business. A number of the ex-N.C.O.s became publicans and in gratitude for the help that they had received from their former commander they named their hostelries after him. There are several Marquises of Granby in London and it is a pub name that can be found elsewhere in England.

Location: 51-52 Chandos Place, WC2N 4HS (orange, brown)

2 Rathbone Street, W1T 1NT (orange, blue)

142 Shaftesbury Avenue, WC2H 8HJ. No longer one. (purple, yellow)

See Also: PUBS The Marquises of Granby

 

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The Ship

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The Seven Years' War started in 1756. A ban was placed on English sermons being delivered in the chapels of Roman Catholic powers. Therefore, after the service at the Sardinian Chapel the Anglophone congregants would go to The Ship pub in Lincoln's Inn Fields. There Bishop Richard Challoner would preach to them. His listeners would disguise themselves as boisterous drinkers by each having a pot of beer in front of them. This practice was maintained until 1791. By then, it was clear that Catholics in France were being oppressed by the French Revolutionaries.

Location: The Sardinian Chapel, 70 Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC2A 3JA (blue, brown)

The Ship, 12 Gate Street, WC2A 3HP (blue, yellow)

See Also: EMBASSIES & LEGATIONS, DISAPPEARED; ROMAN CATHOLIC PLACES OF WORSHIP St Anselm & St Cecilia

Website: www.theshiptavern.co.uk https://parish.rcdow.org.uk/lincolnsinnfields

 

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The Wheatsheaf

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The Wheatsheaf in Fitzrovia was one of the hubs of Bohemia. During the Second World War, Julian McLaren Ross held court at one end of the bar, while Dylan Thomas was at the other. Both men worked in Golden Square writing propaganda films.

Location: 25 Rathbone Place, W1T 1JB (purple, turquoise)

Website: www.thewheatsheaffitzrovia.co.uk

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Julian Maclaren-Ross

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Julian Maclaren-Ross (n James Ross) (1912-1964) was born James Ross in South Norwood. Following his father's death, he acquired a private income. However, the trust that furnished this was wound up in 1938. Thereafter, he had to work for a living. For a period he was a salesman for Electrolux. His stories appeared in well-regarded literary magazines such as Horizon, Lilliput, and Penguin New Writing. Ross's final years were off unfulfilled publishing contracts, mounting debts, and moonlight flits. He had a series of misfortunes with movie scripts. He was considerably aided by R.D. Smith (1914-1985), a producer within the B.B.C. Features Department

Maclaren-Ross wrote about Raymond Chandler that treated him as a novelist rather than as a crime writer. This treatment earned him writer's gratitude. In 1956 he wrote a seminal essay on Hitchcock.

Maclaren-Ross served as the model for a number of literary characters. Olivia Manning (1908-1980) - Smith's wife - created the likeable scrounger Prince Yakimov in The Great Fortune (1960), Graham Greene for James Wormold the vacuum-cleaner salesman-turned-spy in Our Man In Havana (1958), and Anthony Powell for X Trapnel in Books Do Furnish A Room (1971).

His corpse was buried in Mill Hill Cemetery (Plot H1).

See Also: BOHEMIA

David Backhouse 2024