Christmas Covent Garden Pub Walk  New Walk!

Short read; there are over sixty pubs and bars in the Covent Garden area alone; several of them are listed buildings, with some also on CAMRA‘s National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors.  We take you on a yuletide inspired historical journey to the heart of London’s so-called  ‘Garden of Venus’ with two or perhaps even three festive pub stops on the way!

Long Read; If only pubs could talk? Our Christmas pub walk features pubs in which the history of the building is as colourful as the people who once drank in them. And it goes without saying these are some of the oldest and most atmospheric in London. Take out first pub, it was said, ‘there was scarcely an execution …in which the culprit did not call at a public-house en route for a parting draught’, it was here at ‘The Angel’ a condemned man would take his last draught of a ‘strong nutty ale’ before meeting the hangman.

The Seven Dials used to be a notorious slum, ‘where is there such another maze of streets, courts, lanes and alleys?’ asked Dickens. Today it is one of the liveliest, one of the most fashionable theatre and shopping districts of London and at Christmas it is festooned with lights and decorations. At one stage, each of the seven apex buildings facing the column housed a pub. We take our choice. How about a pub where the Monty Python team of Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam supped? They had their offices in Neal’s Yard, surely the most colourful courtyard in London. Take note of the homeopathic remedies and delicious Monmouth Coffee, plus no Christmas is complete of course without a Neal’s Yard Cheese!

Covent Garden loves a celebration and last year it featured forty gigantic bells, twelve giant baubles, eight spinning mirrors and a Victorian Xmas Sleigh in the market. Not to mention daily snow showers, a gingerbread hut, mulled wine a plenty, a Christmas Choir and to top it all a sixty foot Christmas Tree in the piazza. The Lamb and Flag’ (circa 1623), is probably the oldest pub in the area, bristling with character, so called in the nineteenth century ‘The Bucket of Blood’, after the bare knuckle prize fights once staged in the upstairs bar. The ancient alleyway next to the pub was the spot where the poet John Dryden was set upon by thugs hired by the rakish Earl of Rochester. Then perhaps, ‘The Marquis’, also known as ‘the hole in the wall’, where the romantic French highwayman Claude Duval was captured propping up the bar! Does it have a fire, of course it does, its seventeenth century! Today ‘The Marquis’ is a ‘record lover’s hot spot’, with a jukebox, a vast collection of vinyl’s, regular live music and recent cameo appearances in ‘Mary Poppins the Return’ and of course ‘Last Christmas’.

Then, there is the ‘The Harp’, if only all pubs were like ‘The Harp’? Bristling with awards it’s the perfect London boozer or ‘The Salisbury’ dripping with Art Nouveau described as an interior of ‘national importance’. And all this in sight of Trafalgar Square and THAT tree. So as Dickens says, ‘draw your chair nearer the blazing fire- fill the glass and send around the song’, it’s that time of year. You deserve some Christmas cheer!