
3) The Red Lion, Poppin’s Court.
Among London’s ‘ lost pubs ‘ The Red Lion, which was tucked away in Poppin’s Court, off Fleet Street, just before Ludgate Circus, is one of the least known, although, as we shall see, it ought to be celebrated. A frequent haunt of writers and journalists working in the Street of Shame, it is the subject of an affectionate portrait in The Book of Fleet Street ( 1931), by Clennell Wilkinson, who wrote for The London Mercury. Clennell christened it ‘ The Compositor’s Arms due to the fact that it stood close the Head Office of the printers’ union. The author was a frequenter of this pub from October 1921 to August 1925, but after he had finished going there he never returned.
‘ It was the discreetist little pub you ever saw…and formed part of the great estate of the Bishops of Ely, stretching southwards from Holborn to the very banks of the river at Blackfriars. But you might go past the entrance to that court without noticing that there was a pub there…’
‘The proprietor, a sturdy forthright fellow, who rather liked to have us about the place—would in fact do anything for us except read us—is now alas, dead. So are George Mair and Jimmy Allison, and Bohun Lynch, and John Freeman, and too many others of his customers of those days. But I like to think that the Perfect Barmaid, who afterward became his wife, is still presiding with that gentle, dignified efficiency of hers, of not over this establishment, then over some other…
The connection between pubs and literature is less marked today than it was in the days when Englishmen could really write. Shakespeare would be utterly puzzled to understand why even now I feel I ought to make some apology for mentioning The ( London) Mercury in this connection; he would be astonished if he could see the thin sneer with which these lines would probably be read by some of his most enthusiastic modern admirers. Big drinks are out of fashion—that’s the truth. If they had served American cocktails in Poppin’s Court—but I digress…’
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