In Charles Dickens’s famous novel ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ a character is taken by the arm and led “up a covered way into a tavern” where he receives a “good plain dinner and good wine”. The “tavern” mentioned is one of the most famous pubs in London ‘Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese’. So let me take you by the arm and lead you through a narrow alleyway and over the threshold of this historic place…
From the bright lights of Fleet Street (our newspaper district) you step into the characteristic gloom of ‘the Cheese’ (as Londoners affectionally term the pub), where the lack of natural light will leave you blinking into the semi darkness.
Rebuilt in 1667, just after the Great Fire of London you descend a creaky staircase to the labyrinth of chambers below. Step back (or, in this case, down) in time! My favourite tables are situated in the secretive 13th century vaults that used to belong to a medieval monastery.
Anyone who was anyone has been to ‘the Cheese’, a roll-call of famous writers among its customers: Charles Dickens, Dr. Johnson, Mark Twain, Voltaire, Tennyson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle…
But perhaps the most famous denizen was an African grey parrot called Polly who arrived at the pub in the 1890’s and lived there for 40 years. The mischievous bird was known to swear at or kiss startled customers and shout out orders such as “Hurry up with the pudding!” Stuffed after its death (which made the news across the world) rather macabrely Polly can still be found mounted in a glass case behind the bar!
In this very old footage of London, among the great monuments of the capital, ‘Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese’ appears at 6 minutes in. A little corner of London that will always have a firm place both in my personal affections and in England’s wider collective memory.
