Post Date: 31st October 2013
Author: Matt Gedge
October 30th 1926 was a sad day for Fleet Street, London. One of its most famous characters had just passed away, succumbing to pneumonia after years of entertaining the crowds in the ancient watering hole Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.
The death was marked by obituaries in around 200 newspapers from across the globe, while an announcement was broadcast from 2LO (the London station of the BBC). The news had ‘gloomed half London’ according to the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette.
Tears weren’t being shed over one of the great writers, journalists or judges often found on this street, but over a parrot named Polly. She was an African Grey, birds who are renowned not only for their longevity (Polly was in her 40th year when she died), but also their great skill at mimicking noises. And Polly was a truly exceptional and celebrated talent.
From the mid-1880s the pub famed for its association with story tellers like Dickens, Thackeray, Boswell and Johnson had a new kid on the block, and his fame grew with age. The Angus Evening Telegraph declared that Polly was known for ‘his knowledge of Scottish words which he ejaculated continually and his imitation of the popping of corks’. According to the Hull Daily Mail, Polly said ‘Rats!’ to customers and ‘gave fictitious orders galore’.
The legend grew, and when in August 1905 Polly disappeared after his cage was left open, the hunt for the bird was big news. According to the Dundee Courier, “Mr Moore the Cheese landlord was in tears, organising a search party of fleet footed waiters who were to be seen spying among the chimney pots and telegraph wires of Wine Office Court, Kings Head Passage and adjoining streets. Policemen were offered gold to find Polly dead or alive and return him to the Cheese. Later in the evening when all seemed lost, a man walking along Farringdon Avenue was asked ‘give me a kiss darling’ to which he replied ‘certainly not’, with the phantom voice then demanding ‘pudding and two veg!’ and ‘Hurry up!’ It was of course Polly, who was caught and with much rejoicing returned to the pub.
Towards the end of 1919 Princess Mary, daughter of King George V, is said to have met Polly while officially opening the new City Women’s Club in adjacent Wine Office Court. Among the assembled crowd, Polly sat perched on the wrist of the head waiter of Ye OIde Cheshire Cheese and Mary stopped to stroke the parrot’s head. The Hull Daily Mail writes ‘To her abiding credit Polly did not indulge in that profane kind of chatter for which she is famous’. According to the excitable journalist in the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, Princess Mary ‘insisted on being introduced to Polly. It had to be done, but it aged the manager’.
Acting royalty were also drawn to the famous parrot, with Charlie Chaplin’s ramble through old London and visit of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in 1921 being described by the Nottingham Evening Post: ‘…he tried the famous toasted cheese and talked to the equally famous grey parrot. And the parrot talked to him…Polly chattered like a real lady and even sang a song’.
This article is not only revealing about the fame of Polly, but also indicates confusion (or indifference) to whether it was male or female!
Other legends developed over the years, with stories of Armistice Day 1918 when Polly imitated so many corks popping that he passed out.
But even the brightest – and bluest – of flames eventually go out, and despite ‘frequent doses of whiskey’ Polly passed away in 1926, to the sadness of all those people whose life he had touched.
Headlines around the world pronounced his death:
‘Expert of Profanity Dies’ (New York Times)
‘Famous Parrot of Cheshire Cheese is Pneumonia Victim’ (North China Star)
‘Passing of Polly’ (Calcutta, India)
‘A Loss to Fleet Street’ (Christchurch, NZ)
‘Parrot that cried “Scotch!” at Ancient Fleet Street Tavern to be Stuffed’ (The Sun, Baltimore)According to the Gloucester Citizen, initially he was ‘stuffed and placed in a hotel, a collecting box beneath appealing for subscriptions to found a cot at St Bartholomew’s Hospital to her memory’. But today Polly is back in her rightful place, above the bar in the pub where he made his name.
After his death, there was a competition to find an appropriate epitaph. This was the winning entry by a G. Rostrevor Hamilton:
‘The pop of corks, the gurgle of wine. Kissing and human speech were mine
Accomplishments that could not save me from the dry and silent grave.
Enough! No maudlin tear be shed: Not all of Polly shall be dead
Though silent, here upon the shelf
I stand – in memory of myself’
Post Date: 15th October 2013
Author: Matt Gedge
On 17th October 199 years ago London witnessed one of the most bizarre and tragic accidents in its history.
In the neighbourhood of St Giles – where the Dominion Theatre now stands – loomed the vast Henry Meux and Co Brewery. Inside were a number of huge vats, each ‘three to four storeys in height’ and capable of holding up to 3500 barrels of porter (strong beer).
On 17th October 1814 at around 5pm disaster struck when one of the vats exploded. The beer burst through the brewhouse with such force that the bricks from the walls flew over the tops of neighbouring houses. As beer surged forward, the backs of a number of buildings on adjacent Russell street were caved in – two private houses, a booksellers, a poulterers and the Tavistock Arms.
Within minutes, neighbouring George Street and New Street were swamped with alcohol, with the houses on Russell Street bearing the brunt of the wave as beer crashed into the buildings and swept down into the cellars. Servants sought safety by clambering onto furniture, but not everyone managed to escape unharmed. On the first floor of one of the private residences on Russell Street a mother and daughter were having tea; the mother was killed instantly by the onrushing porter, while her daughter was swept through a partition and ‘dashed to pieces’. In the Tavistock Arms a young girl suffocated. In another house around 30 people had gathered for the wake of a young girl who had died just days earlier. Tragically five of those died.
The London Morning Post described the aftermath of the explosion: ‘The surrounding scene of desolation presents a most awful and terrific appearance, equal to that which fire or earthquake may be supposed to occasion’. A large and devastated community gathered quickly and attempted to rescue those who had survived. Three men were rescued from the brewery by people wading in beer up to their waists while others cleared away the rubbish and listened to the cries of trapped residents.
Eight people died in the disaster. In the aftermath three of the bodies were laid in coffins with shrouds nearby, with members of the public paying their respects and leaving a small contribution towards their funeral. Five people who had died in the wake were laid in a parlour in black coffins while their names and ages were written on lids that stood around the room. Two constables stood at the door with a plate for donations, and it was reported that people of all financial standing left money, supported by the local shopkeepers who positioned notes in their windows to take subscriptions for the bereaved.
The one consolation was that the accident didn’t happen an hour later as this meant that the majority of men were still at work.
How did this tragedy come to pass? Well, according to the London Morning Post, the vat which burst was said to be old and ‘in a decayed state’. Evidence given to the House of Commons Select Committee in 1817 suggested that the brewer Henry Meux ‘used methods on the borders of legality and beyond to secure trade’.
Despite losses of around £15,000 the brewery not only survived but flourished and Henry Meux’s personal fortune grew with it. Within a month he had married, and petitioned the government for remission of £7000 excise duties paid on the beer lost in the accident, and before he died he had been granted a baronetcy!
Post Date: Wednesday 14th August 2013
Author: Matt Gedge
7 St. Andrews Hill, London. EC4V 5BY
The Cockpit is a hidden gem nestled in a backstreet near St Paul’s Cathedral. It has a decent range of beers and ales on tap, and the bar staff are friendly which helps create a warm, homely atmosphere. You’ll see a diverse mix of clientele, with city workers and regulars during the week mixing in with construction workers and people spilling out of St Paul’s at the weekend.
But what stands out is the history of the place.
Walk down a few historic alleyways, and you’ll see the pub at the head of a sweep of buildings, appearing like the head of a ship driving up a hill. Step through the curved door and you sense that this place has seen its fair share of action.
The pub was built in the 1840s and became famed for its cockfights. Look up and you’ll see the 18ft high ceiling and a balcony where Londoners would have bayed for blood and gambled while the cocks fought for their life. Breathe in, and you could imagine the flurry of feathers and screams of excitement.
Sitting in the small area where this rather unsavoury blood sport used to take place, you’ll no doubt be comforted that by 1849 cockfighting was prohibited, and the pub’s name was changed to the far more stately Three Castles.
But let’s go further back in time, for where you are sitting would – in an earlier incarnation – have been known by William Shakespeare. The pub suggests that this would have actually been the exact location of his house, and corroborate it with research from the Times newspaper in 1928. According to the information inside the pub, the first mention of an inn on this site was in 1352, then called the ‘Oakbourn Inn’, situated on what would then have been the eastern edge of the Dominican friars – or ‘Blackfriars’ – monastery.
After the dissolution of the monasteries in the late 1530s by King Henry VIII, these buildings were mostly left intact. Ireland Yard nearby was the main entrance into Blackfriars, and Shakespeare purchased the gatehouse – probably with other actors – in 1613 at a cost of £140 for use as a theatre.
All of this adds to the intrigue and sense of history in the Cockpit.
Author: Matt Gedge
Post Date: 3rd March 2015
London has some wonderful pubs. Arguably the Square Mile has some of the finest this city can offer. But if you’re bamboozled by the sheer number of drinking establishments per square foot and want to know where the really good ones are, then this could be just the blog you’re looking for! Just one thing – most pubs in this area close at the weekends, so this is ideally a weekday trail.
I’ve selected four of the most historic and atmospheric pubs in the City, and ensured there’s a decent stroll between them in order to stretch your legs and admire the extraordinary locale. Begining your walk from Barbican tube station, walk along Middle Street via Long Lane and Middle Street and you’ll shortly arrive at the first pub on your trail.
Enjoy!
The Hand and Shears, 1 Middle Street. EC1A 7JA
This wonderful Victorian pub is tucked away on one of the atmospheric back streets which lead off from Barbican underground station and sits adjacent to the majestic 12th century St Bartholomew the Great Church. The whole area can be beautifully tranquil and quiet at the weekend, although after kick out time during the week the pub can be rather busy.
The unusual name of this fine establishment derives from the Cloth Fair which occurred in the precincts of St Bartholomew every August from 1133. Each year the Lord Mayor would declare the Fair open by cutting through a length of cloth, a tradition which of course continues today with ribbon cutting.
There has been a pub here from medieval times, and if you venture upstairs you are standing where the Court of Pied Poudres (translated as ‘dusty feet’) sat to mete out justice during the Cloth Fair. By swiftly punishing those who contravened the City’s regulations the court ensured the quality of cloth and continued monopoly of the trade guilds.
Moving on… from this backwater you can venture through the churchyard of St Bartholomew the Great then out into Smithfield. Along the way you’ll pass memorials to Protestant martyrs cruelly burnt here by ‘Bloody’ Mary and another to William Wallace. Your next pub can be found if you turn left onto Giltspur Street and walk straight until you reach the crossroads. Take a moment to check out the Golden Boy of Pye Corner halfway along on your right and then make your way into the beautiful Viaduct Tavern on the corner.
The Viaduct Tavern, 126 Newgate Street, EC1A 7AA
Named after the adjacent Holborn Viaduct which was built in 1869 and described as the world’s first flyover, you could definitely say the Viaduct Tavern is a full blown corner pub.
It stands defiantly between two rather overwhelming buildings, St Sepulchre without Newgate, and the Central Criminal Court, aka the Old Bailey. If you believe in the supernatural the whole area must resonate with the tortured souls of thousands of Londoners. Have a pint here, and you would be imbibing where the condemned would start their long journey west to the Tyburn Gallows; to the North is Smithfield where hundreds of witches, heretics and one famous Scot met their grisly end, and across the street to the South was the site of the notorious Newgate Prison and its public hangings just outside.
In such a setting, it is not surprising that the owners of the Viaduct have decided to open up their cellars for customers. It’s cold and atmospheric downstairs and you’ll be shown what they claim to be penitentiary cells for the Giltspur Street Comptor (small prison). But alas, looking at the documentary evidence it would appear that it is all a hoax, and the cells you see are merely wine cellars…
Nevertheless the pub itself is wonderful and is thoroughly worth a visit. It was built in 1875, and decorated shortly afterwards at the end of the Victorian pub boom. Step inside and you’ll be rewarded with the sight of beautifully etched glass panels and a sweeping semi-circular bar while on the right your attention will be diverted by three large paintings of women representing agriculture, commerce and art on the walls. Move closer, and you’ll notice that two are damaged. One is the result of an event during the war where a serviceman had one too many and drunkenly fired a shot into the wall while the other was ripped by a rifle bayonet.
The Cockpit, St. Andrews Hill, London. EC4V 5BY
The Cockpit is a hidden gem nestled in a backstreet near St Paul’s Cathedral. It has a decent range of beers and ales on tap, and the bar staff are friendly which helps create a warm, homely atmosphere. You’ll see a diverse mix of clientele, with city workers and regulars during the week mixing in with construction workers and people spilling out of St Paul’s at the weekend.
The pub was built in the 1840s and became famed for its cockfights. Look up and you’ll see the 18ft high ceiling and a balcony where Londoners would have bayed for blood and gambled while the cocks fought for their life. Breathe in, and you could imagine the flurry of feathers and screams of excitement.
Sitting in the small area where this rather unsavoury blood sport used to take place, you’ll no doubt be comforted that by 1849 cockfighting was prohibited, and the pub’s name was changed to the far more stately Three Castles.
But let’s go further back in time, for where you are sitting would – in an earlier incarnation – have been known by William Shakespeare. The pub suggests that this would have actually been the exact location of his house, and corroborate it with research from the Times newspaper in 1928.
According to the information inside the pub, the first mention of an inn on this site was in 1352, then called the ‘Oakbourn Inn’, situated on what would then have been the eastern edge of the Dominican friars – or ‘Blackfriars’ – monastery.
After the dissolution of the monasteries in the late 1530s by King Henry VIII, these buildings were mostly left intact. Ireland Yard nearby was the main entrance into Blackfriars, and Shakespeare purchased the gatehouse – probably with other actors – in 1613 at a cost of £140 for use as a theatre.
All of this adds to the intrigue and sense of history in the Cockpit.
The Blackfriar, 174 Queen Victoria Street, EC4V 4EG
The Blackfriar was erected in 1875, making it the youngest pub on the list but it truly stands out as it is the only art nouveau pub in London, and a real masterpiece of design. Outside above the doorway is a large black figure of a monk, while inside there is a wonderful mosaic ceiling and some rather wise mottos which you can read under the watchful eyes of the bronze figures of monks: ‘Silence is Golden’, ‘Industry is All’, ‘Haste is Slow’, ‘Finery is Foolery’ and my favourite, ‘Don’t advertise it, tell a gossip’.
But London being London, the site on which the pub stands has a rich historical heritage. It was built in the vicinity of the vast medieval Dominican Friary, where the friars were known as Black Friars due to the colour of their habit.
Brewing beer was important to the medieval orders, as was drinking according to this old couplet:
‘To drink like a Caputchin is to drink poorly. To drink like a Bendedictine is to drink deeply. To drink like a Dominican is pot after pot. But to drink like a Franciscan is to drink the cellars dry.’
The pub claims that there may be a Henry VIII connection too, as it is believed that Emperor Charles V the Papal Magistrate and Henry’s court sat on this very location during the dissolution of the King’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1532.
You can see two of these pubs on our Forgotten London walking tour, currently operating on Saturdays.
