Charing Cross to Oxford Circus.
The Harp
Street: 47 Chandos Place
Operator: Fullers
Open:
11:00 - 23.00 Monday-Saturday
12:00 - 22:00 Sunday
Map: Charing Cross to Oxford Circus
Homepage
Underground: Charing Cross (1min)
Bakerloo
Northern
About the pub:
The Harp for many years was first tenanted and then owned by the legendary Binnie Walsh, who ran it as a small, friendly, and independent free house with a large selection of well-kept ales and still ciders. Under her leadership it picked up numerous awards including in 2010 the ultimate accolade, CAMRA National Pub of the Year.
In 2014 the pub was bought by Fuller's who upgraded the plumbing and wiring but otherwise left the pub pretty much the same. Fuller's gave a commitment that it would continue to recognise this iconic pub, particularly amongst ale and cider drinkers. From 2014 the pub has carried on winning various CAMRA and other awards (see 2018 branch Pub of the Year photo with manager Paul Sims and branch chairman the late Les Maggs) including again branch PoTY in 2023. A board in the upstairs lounge now lists its various awards (with plenty of space left, see photo!).
The pub is popular with musicians and stage hands from the London Coliseum (when they can squeeze in!), for whom it has a convenient back door.
Green Day played a "surprise" gig in this pub in November 2023.
The narrow bar is adorned with mirrors and portraits; there is no intrusive music or TV; and the upstairs room provides a refuge from the busy throng. This pub is deservedly popular as a main real ale destination venue in central London and can become very crowded, but once you manage to get to the bar you will normally be spotted and served quickly. Drinking is permitted outside.
The alleyway (Brydges Place, formerly Taylors Buildings until the 1930s) next door was for years blocked with doors by the pub's neighbour, the Institute of Chinese Medicine. Through the campaigning efforts of a CAMRA member and a local business man Westminster Council reasserted rights, after more than 10 years, to this as a public highway and the doors were removed. The Harp site has been noted by Westminster Council as an unlisted building of merit.
The picture of "Dominic Pinto at the Bar, Sunday afternoon" is by kind permission of Dominic Pinto and artist Lewis Hazelwood-Horner.
Historic Interest
Dating from at least 1785, it was the Welsh Harp until 1995. Photographed in 1892 (Reference Number BL11729 in Historic England's archive), the signage on the pub's elevation features a large harp and above that 'Gilbert's', the name of the licensee Edwin Henry Gilbert who also appears with his family and staff in the 1891 census. Whose beers were on sale at that time is not certain. There's a reference to From Hammersmith above the ground floor window but this does not seem to have been from Fuller's.
Nearby point of interest:
Blue plaques -Westminster
The Marquis
Street: 51-52 Chandos Place
Operator: The Morton Scott Pub Company
Open:
12:00 - 23:00 Monday-Thursday
12:00 - 00:00 Friday-Saturday
12:00 - 20:00 Sunday
Map: Charing Cross to Oxford Circus
Homepage
Underground: Charing Cross (1min)
Bakerloo
Northern
About the pub:
A small, wedge-shaped pub near the Coliseum Theatre, the present building was rebuilt in 1843 to the design of Isaac Bird. Charles Dickens drank here during the years he was working to buy his family out of a debtors prison.
An upstairs room with one ale handpump is available for dining or private hire. Food is served including traditional pub meals, smaller dishes, sharing platters, baguettes, salads, burgers, and a kids menu.
Normally there are four real ales available, three of which change.
Grade II listed, Historic England ref 1066313. Established in 1764 as the Granby's Head. It later became the Marquis of Granby, honouring General John Manners, who led the Horse Grenadier Guards during the Seven Year War of 1756-63, and gave £200 to any officer or wounded soldier under him who opened a tavern and named it after him. Earlier on this site at a tavern named The Hole-in-the-Wall, the famous Restoration highwayman Claude Duval was arrested, and then hanged at Tyburn Tree.
Nearby point of interest:
Blue plaques -Westminster
The Coach & Horses
Street: 29 Greek Street
Operator: Fullers
Open:
12:00 - 23:00 Monday-Saturday
12:00 - 20:00 Sunday
Map: Charing Cross to Oxford Circus
Homepage
Underground: Leicester Square (4min)
Northern
Piccadilly
About the pub:
First licensed in 1724 the pub was most recently rebuilt in 1889 and is Grade II listed. The name of course derives from horse-drawn coaches and it is thought that a type of shuttle service ran from this site to the Smithfield Market area, the main starting-point for coaches going north.
The venue is now a very good example of 1930s pub-fitting with spittoon troughs, bar back and wall panelling all surviving from that era, plus some Art Deco lino floor tiles. The pub was added to the CAMRA National Inventory in summer 2019 because of its 1930s interior. The Historic England listing is number 1235282 and was last enhanced in Feb 2020; the listing contains fascinating details about the site history
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Following cessation of a previous tenancy, this became a Fuller's managed house with the iconic piano singalongs continuing on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Bar snacks are on offer but no substantial food.
The pub hosts occasional showings of the play "Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell" by Keith Waterhouse, see Historic Interest entry. Ticket prices are for Seated, Bar Stool, or Standing, but all much cheaper then your average West End show.
The columnist Jeffrey Bernard used to be famously "unwell" for duty after being in this pub, and its former landlord Norman Balon who retired in 2006 liked to be known as "London's rudest landlord". He is remembered in the pub sign! Known as a gathering place for writers & thinkers, the pub hosted for many years until 2014 the fortnightly Private Eye editorial lunch sessions. Simultaneously there were often Special Branch officers downstairs posing as ordinary drinkers and looking out for anyone of interest to them. The July 2019 issue of The Oldie magazine carried an interview with Norman Balon, then aged 92, and a marvellous Heath cartoon of the pub and its then-regulars in 1986.
Nearby point of interest:
Blue plaques -Westminster
John Snow
Street: 39 Broadwick Street
Operator: Samuel Smith
Open:
12:00 - 23:00 Monday-Thursday
13:00 - 23:30 Friday-Saturday
13:00 - 22:00 Sunday
Map: Charing Cross to Oxford Circus
Homepage
Underground: Piccadilly Circus (6min)
Bakerloo
Piccadilly
About the pub:
Renamed in 1956 after the famous doctor, John Snow, who proved the connection between cholera and contaminated water. Until then (mid-1850s) cholera had been thought caused by "miasma" or bad air. By removing the water pump handle in the street a few yards away, Snow proved statistically that contaminated water must be the cause. Snow's portrait on the pub sign looks fairly disapproving but at least he might like the fact that the beers that are sold, are pasteurised! A corner pub with trademark Sam Smith's woody feel and etched glass. Lounge upstairs and a duck-under between the two ground-floor bars. No real ale is served.
Patrons should note that there is a strict "no swearing" policy in Samuel Smith's establishments. Also by decision of the brewery owner, customers may not use mobile phones, laptops or similar inside the pub; tablets and iPads are prohibited inside or outside. The brewery's policy is that its pubs are for social conversation person to person.
In 1801 just down the road at numbers 49 & 50 a brewery started up under the name Lion Brewery, which grew over the next few decades to be a very substantial industrial operation in the heart of the West End. Its workers naturally drank beer not water and were unaffected by the cholera, giving John Snow a strong clue as to the cause of the disease.
The Fitzroy Tavern
Street: 16 Charlotte Street
Operator: Samuel Smith
Open:
12:00 - 23:00 Monday-Saturday
12:00 - 22:30 Sunday
Map: Charing Cross to Oxford Circus
Homepage
Underground: Goodge Street (4min)
Northern
About the pub:
The building started life as the Fitzroy Coffee House in 1883 and became the Hundred Marks in 1887; renamed the Fitzroy Tavern in 1919, by which time Germanic references were not popular.
Formerly a Charrington's house (and before that owned by Hoare and Co.), the Fitzroy was taken over by Sam Smiths and has recently undergone a complete transformation (along the lines of the Princess Louise in Holborn). A large semi-island bar serves six separate drinking areas, some connected internally. There is a profusion of well crafted etched glass, mirrors, tiles and wood panelling, on which Sam Smiths have really gone to town. Paintings, photos, posters and other memorabilia decorate many available walls. There are two real fires! Even hardened pub-goers should prepare to be impressed.
Prices would probably have a Yorkshireman reaching for his smelling-salts, not his wallet, but they are very reasonable - for London.
Fitzrovia, which is said to said to be have been so-named, by Tom Driberg alias William Hickey of the Daily Express, from the pub, had a distinctly bohemian flavour from the 1920s onwards, and the Fitzroy was its beating heart, where Pierrepoint the hangman mixed with Fabian of the Yard, Coco the Clown, writers Dylan Thomas and George Orwell, politicians Nye Bevan and Hugh Gaitskell, comedians Kenneth Williams and Tommy Cooper, sculptor Jacob Epstein and artist Augustus John . . . becoming one of the very few pubs to have its own biography, by the daughter of a previous licensee ("The Fitzroy; the Autobiography of a London Tavern" by Sally Fiber, available second-hand or from a good library).
The development of the Fitzroy Tavern as the heart of eponymous Fitzrovia goes back at least two generations, to that of Judah and Jane Kleinfeld who migrated from Polish Russia in the 1880s. A naturalised British subject, Judah and his family lived in Phoenix Street, off Charing Cross Road. Judah was a master tailor in Saville Row counting among his clients the future King of the Belgians, and a leading member of the West End Jewish community. His greatcoat making business in WWI took him along Tottenham Court Road and into Windmill Street where on the corner stood the Hundred Marks, which pre-war had been in the heart of one of London's main German quarters.
Nearby Charlotte Street was the main artery, known as Charlottenstrasse, and famous for its German restaurants and clubs. Judah decided to become a licensee, apparently regarded as a natural second career in his native Poland, and his personality and determination had persuaded brewers Hoare and Co. to let him take on the tenancy of the Hundred Marks. His business partner, not a British subject, could not join him in this new venture. Instead Judah's 15 year old daughter Annie, despite a successful school career and ambitions, was prevailed upon to assist him in the new business - the renamed Fitzroy Tavern that opened under its new guvnor and name in March 1919.
The area north of Oxford Street had been associated with artists writers and musicians since it was developed in the latter part of the 18th century. John Constable was a famous resident in the 1820s and 1830s, and others were inspired or lived in the area including George Bernard Shaw, James McNeill Whistler, and Walter Sickert. A developing cosmopolitan and Bohemian community of struggling artists, immigrants, writers, poets, composers and sculptors responded with some enthusiasm to the outgoing and enthusiastic new licensee known as 'Pop', and the Tavern was more usually known as Kleinfeld's or Klein's. Many of the traditions, decorations, and customs developed over those years including an annual Derby Day outing, when Pop would hire a coach to take them and a party of customers to Epsom.
It was on one of these in 1933 that Annie met and eventually fell in love with Charles Allchild, their coach driver. They married in 1934 and Charles became such an essential part of the running of the pub that soon he and Annie took over as joint licensees, with Pop and his wife Jane retiring to Hove, holding sway over the next decades of change and war. Though the golden age may have been the 1920s and 1930s, the Allchilds through the Blitz had made the Fitzroy into the 'Rendezvous of the World'. The cooling post-war ushered in a different era, and the death of Pop Kleinfeld in 1947. In the mid-50s the legal battle that became known as 'The Battle of the Fitzroy' while ultimately a victory for the Allchilds led to their own decision to bow out in 1956. And the Fitzroy entered a new era - still giving successive generations a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction, while all around has changed. More than just a London public house, it was a convivial heart of the area for over 37 years offering kindness, humanity, and good fellowship. It remains an essential part of our history, and continues to welcome locals, regulars and visitors alike.
Nearby point of interest:
The George
Street: 55 Great Portland Street
Operator: JKS Pubs
Open: 16:00 - 23:00 Monday
12:00 - 23:00 Tuesday-Saturday
12:00 - 19:00 Sunday
Map: Charing Cross to Oxford Circus
Homepage
Underground: Oxford Circus (5min)
Bakerloo
Victoria
Central
About the pub:
Following closure in in July 2016, the Sethi family, behind JKS Restaurants and London venues such as Gymkhana and Brigadiers, were amongst a private investor syndicate which took over this site for a gastro-pub concept. A licence was granted in 2021 to The George London Limited and the venue finally reopened in late November 2021. The interior renovation has been carried out to a high standard.
The ground floor bar gives a “quintessential British pub experience” and offers a short menu of traditional pub snacks, main courses and puddings from Wednesday to Sunday. The “Upstairs at The George” offers up-market food dining and a sparkling wine bar all set in in beautiful surroundings: chandeliers, Persian rugs, tiled fireplaces and so on. Note the finely-lit wine "cellar"; the wine list here is spectacularly long and includes a large selection of southern-county English wines in addition to wines from around the world.
Established on this site in 1677 the George is a Grade II listed building, rebuilt at a cost of £4,467 by Bird & Walters in 1878. It was a large corner pub that has kept its excellent Victorian wood panelling, gilded mirrors, and ceramic panels and tiling. It was yet another pub frequented by the impoverished wartime Fitrovian set of writers, scratching around for work at the nearby BBC. The pub was nicknamed the Gluepot by Sir Thomas Beecham because he claimed his musicians kept getting stuck there...
Nearby point of interest:
