Licensed to Sell…

‘ The pub and the church are twin symbols at the heart of every English community, the signs of an integrated social life, and they have been so throughout our recorded history from Chaucer’s time down to the new Elizabethan age’. 

So wrote the anonymous author of ‘ Licensed to Sell ‘ in  the September/October 1952 issue of Today (Photo World).With congregations plummeting year by year, the Church ‘s position in the community may have lessened considerably since the year in which Elizabeth II ascended the throne, but the friendly local remains the favourite meeting place for many men and women, whether they actually drink alcohol or not.

However, back in 1952, when bitter, mild and porter were dominant, lager frowned on as a European interloper, and when to order a coffee as an alternative to alcohol in a pub was almost an insult. As the author put it

‘ Beer is complementary to the Englishman’s character and has therefore set the seal on the local pub as the very hub of every social activity. Certain town councils used to hold their village meetings in the local, and as late as 1794 not only orthodox churchmen but Nonconformists as well did consider it blasphemous to old their meetings within tavern walls and round off their discussions with flagons of good old ale’

‘In the middle ages the people wanted ale, cheap ale, and the sovereigns saw that they got it. There was no tea or coffee and wine was scarce and dear,  so ale was the necessary concomitant of harvesting, feast days, births and marriages. Even when the making of ale passed from the hands of the private householder into the province of the professional brewer, laws were promulgated to protect the public and control the price and quality of the national beverage. The first licensing statute passed in 1495 under HENRY VII empowered any two Justices of the Peace “ To reject and pout away any common ale selling in towns and places where they should think it convenient, and to take sureties of keepers of ale houses in their good behaviour.”

‘ Court and common folk ‘ drank ale, apparently. Look at the allowance given to Lady Lucy, a maid of honour at the court of Henry VIII

“ Breakfast—a chine of beef, a loaf, a gallon of ale. Luncheon—bread and a gallon of ale. Dinner—a piece of boiled beef , a slice off roast meat, a gallon of ale. Supper—porridge, mutton, a loaf and “—you’ve guessed it—“ a gallon of ale “.

Incidentally, this Lady Lucy (1524 – 1583 Pic Above) was the daughter of Henry Somerset, 2nd Earl of Worcester. She served as a Maid of Honour to Katherine Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth wife, who was executed for adultery. The King considered marrying Lucy, but instead took Katherine Parr as his sixth and final wife. 

Even Henry’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth, had her gallon of ale for breakfast. The alcoholic  regime didn’t seem to do either woman much harm. Lucy reached the age of 59, while Queen Elizabeth died at 70.

At this point the author doesn’t make it clear that this gallon of Tudor ale must have been very weak indeed. After all, how could any human being glug down four gallons of ale ( ie 32 pints ) a day ? That’s if the ration was a daily amount rather than a weekly one. Nor did this ale taste like the beer that we drink today. Beer, according to the learned Dr Bottomley in his Inn Explorer’s Guide ( 1984), was brought to England by the Dutch in the early fifteenth century. It was much stronger than ale and had a bitter taste provided by the addition of hops.

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More London pubs of the 1960s and how they are today

Inspired by The New London Spy (1966)

The Grenadier, Wilton Row.

‘ This serves very decent food, far better than the average pub meal ( though naturally priced accordingly) .It does have a great deal of physical charm, in a particularly nice setting. Its connection is more to do with the Duke of Ellington than with the Grenadier Guards ( though a Colour Sergeant is detailed to pose for the inn sign whenever it needs repainting, and the barmen wear mess jackets). It used, in fact, to be a mess for the Duke’s officers , and Duke himself is alleged to have played cards there.’

Today, the pub is owned by Sir Jim Radcliffe, the chemical engineer who became boss of INEOS and is now the major shareholder of Manchester United. It was Radcliffe’s favourite pub and it was here that he and his friends planned from scratch the Grenadier car that bears the name of the pub, which he bought from Greene King  in 2022. Madonna and William, Prince of Wales have been recent customers. The pub is said to be haunted by a subaltern nicknamed Cedric who was beaten to death for cheating at cards in 1818. 

The London Spy was correct about the price and quality of the food served here. Dishes from the main menu are still expensive, like all pub meals served in Mayfair, but the food is very appealing. Starters range from £10 to £16.25, while the ‘famous Beef Wellington comes in at a bargain £39.95. 

The Star Tavern, Belgrave Mews West.

‘…This belongs to no clique that can actually be pigeon-holed, but you get the impression that if the master-minds behind the Great Train Robbery ever used a pub, it would be one remarkably like the Star. There is the atmosphere of discreet opulence about the place, and inevitably a Jaguar or two outside…’

Well, rather bizarrely, the speculation of 1966 regarding criminal activity, is repeated as fact by those marketing the pub today. According to this:

‘ Bruce Reynolds, who coordinated the robbery, regularly drove his Aston Martin from his Streatham home to meet (Buster) Edwards and one or two other members of the gang in The Star to go over details during the run up to the robbery…’

Arty pubs

Queen’s Elm,  Fulham Road. Chelsea.

‘One of the most famous ‘ arty’ pubs in Chelsea is the Queen’s Elm, where the importance of the customer can be gathered by the way he is greeted by the landlord, who will rush forward if he is a famous novelist or actor, but who will also—let it be said—cash a cheque for the odd poet ( Patrick Kavanagh, the Irish poet, used the pub when in London).’

Alas, the Queen’s Elm no longer exists, having closed its doors in 1990s.It is now yet another clothes shop. The publican referred to in the New London Spy was the Irishman Sean Treacy, who was one of those rare creatures, a chronicler of his own pub. To one commentator, his memoir, A Smell of Broken Glass was a ‘ masterpiece’. To another writer the pub was a refuge for those barred from the Chelsea Arts Club. The film director, Joseph Losey, liked the place and used it as a location for ‘The Servant’ (1963), which starred Dirk Bogarde.

Finch’s ( aka The King’s Arms), Fulham Road.

‘ Finch’s is slightly less pretentious than the Queen’s Elm, and is excellently staffed …It is patronised by actual painters and sculptors, Frank Bowling and Elizabeth Frink, for instance. There is also a hard core of regular locals, being the kind of place you could return to after ten years in Tangier and be sure of running into people you used to know in Finch’s in the old days.’

Today, there is a reference in the online entry to ‘ thespian hell-raisers ‘ ( whatever that means) in the sixties when this pub was known as Finch’s, which is perhaps the reason why the owners decided to drop this name and return to the King’s Head. It is now a pretty standard Victorian pub with the usual period fittings. There are no references to Liz Frink and Frank Bowling, whoever he was. 

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Some pubs in Festival of Britain London and the same pubs seventy years on

imageThe Prospect of Whitby

 

1951 Here ‘ we can sit on a balcony built over  the edge of the Thames and watch the barges slip down on the tide and the big ships come and go  while we drink beer and sample the cooking for which this pub is famed. It’s not what you call smart and elegant, but it is old established and generally crowded.

 

  1. It has survived and now boasts of being the oldest pub in London ( est. 1520), though there are other contenders. Customers can still sit out over the Thames, though with the Docks having closed, most of the craft are tourist boats going to and from Greenwich. The food is hardly noteworthy, being mainly homely steak and ale pies, chicken pies and roasts. There are few veggie options, according to one customer, but there wouldn’t have been any in 1951!

 

The Eagle, City Road

 

  1. The public house, once run by the Salvation Army and immortalised in the ditty:

‘Up and down the City Road,

In and out ‘The Eagle’

That’s the way the money goes.

Pop goes the weasel’.

The pub still dispenses ‘ good cheer , excellent draught ‘Worthington’ beer, to be exact. City Road used to be the centre of the tailoring trade, and towards the end of a week the little tailors often found it necessary to put their pressing iron—or “ weasel”—into pawn with the Salvation Army publicans until pay day. You can see a “ weasel“ on show in the bar to this day.

 

  1. It’s still there, but rather more glamorous than it was in the fifties. Its website doesn’t mention its colourful past, so one must go to Know Your London for its history, which includes spells as a Music Hall, where Marie Lloyd performed. Earlier on in its life, the Eagle was mentioned by Dickens in his Sketches by Boz.

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The George, Borough.

 

  1. Just down from London Bridge station, with its’ waterfront façade of warehouses, behind which lie rows of mean streets and little homes which suffered heavily in the Nazi blitz bombing of London’, is the Borough. On the left going southwards can be found a ‘historic gem’ of an inn, the George, once ‘a terminus for stage coaches’. As we enter the coachyard we really do jump back a century. It’s not mere a question of the setting …Who is this Sam Wellerish figure, a real ostler ? And bless my heart, there’s Mr Pickwick himself about to take coach to Dingley Dell. All right, it’s no hallucination. We just happen to have arrived when the admirers of Charles Dickens use the coachyard as a stage to act scenes from his works ‘

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An apology for the large breweries

allsopp-beer-picHere’s another extract from T.Earle Welby’s The Dinner Knell of 1932. This time the epicure voices an opinion which in the seventies era of the Almighty Keg would not have been accurate but which, thanks to the influence of CAMRA and other campaigning groups, may possibly ring true today.

‘Beer abides and the best of it now is as good as English beer ever was. This is not a fashionable thing to say. For years the air has been full of the moanings of those who imagine a golden age for beer, and suppose it to have been destroyed by the wickedness of the great breweries. The truth of the matter is that, until the nineteenth century was pretty well advanced, most small brewers and vendors, secure in local monopoly, adopted the most vicious methods with beer.

As late as 1824, the author of The Private Brewery wrote: ‘It has seldom been my fortune in a great number of years to taste unadulterated purchased ale, whether brewed in the metropolis or in the brewing districts of the country’. For years before that date and for some years later an extremely harmful and highly intoxicating drug, the Indian berry ( coccollus Indicus) was freely used in beer ; and willow bark, walnut leaf, quassia, gentian, aloes, entered into the production of what was sold in hundreds of establishments and more particularly in the abominable beer-houses produced by the Duke of Wellington’s Act. Continue reading →