Tickets for my final Southbank walk until next summer: The South Bank – Marsh, Industry, Culture and the Festival of Britain, on the 20th of October, are now available by clicking here.

I am back in Soho for this week’s post, continuing my exploration of Soho pubs, including one that claims to be “the West End’s best known pub”, and that “it’s a deeply loved London institution with a rich history”.

The pub with these claims will be later in the post, and is one of many fascinating and individual pubs to be found across part of London which, along with the City, has the highest density of pubs, and where drinking has been embedded in the culture of the place.

Today’s tour starts with:

The Crown and Two Chairmen – Dean Street

The Crown and Two Chairmen is one of the more unusual London pub names. The building we see today dates from 1929, however there has been a pub on the site since 1736 when it was called just the Crown.

The story about the change of name to the Crown and Two Chairmen is that two sedan chair men who were taking Queen Anne to have her portrait painted by Sir James Thornhill, who apparently had his studio in the area, would call at the pub for a drink.

One of the places where this story was put forward was an article in the Sporting Life on the 3rd of November 1926 on historic pubs, where the following was written about the Crown and Two Chairmen, as one of the oldest-established hostelries in the West End:

“It is the only inn of the name in London, and is said to derive its title from the fact that the bearers of Queen Anne’s chair were wont to beguile their time there while Her Majesty was sitting for her portrait to Sir James Thornhill, who lived in the house opposite. This house, No. 74, is still standing next door to the Royalty Theatre.

The Crown and Two Chairmen is probably the tavern mentioned by George Augustus Sala as the one in which he first saw Thackeray. The house was kept by one Dick Moreland, supposed to have been the last landlord in London to wear a pigtail and top-boots, and a small club was held upstairs.”

The problem with this story is that Queen Anne died in 1714, twenty two years before the original pub seems to have been built. The change in name was probably to separate the pub from another pub with the same original name, the Crown in Brewer Street.

I cannot find exactly when the pub changed name, the earliest reference I can find is from August 1811, when the landlord of the pub was unwittingly involved with handling a stolen £10 note. In this reference, the pub had the name of Crown and Two Chairmen.

Whether or not the Queen Anne reference is correct, the pub has one of the more unusual names in London.

The Dog and Duck – Bateman Street

So many London pubs are on the corner of two streets. This makes sense as a corner location stands out far more than within a terrace. Potential customers walking along multiple streets can see the pub, however it does cause confusion with the address of a pub. What street should apply?

Taking the Dog and Duck, the longest side of the building, with three upper floor window bays is on Bateman Street, and this is the street used in the address of the pub, however, searching for references to the pub, Frith Street is used just as many times as Bateman Street, and Frith Street has by far the shortest side of the pub, with just a single window bay.

As an example, the building is Grade II listed, and in the Historic England listing, Bateman Street is given as the address of the pub in the header to the entry, however Frith Street is used in the entry detail.

The listing states that that Dog and Duck was built in 1897, and designed by Francis Chambers for the Cannon Brewery. The interior of the pub is “an exceptional survival of a small late Victorian pub interior with tile work, mirrors and high-quality joinery”.

Although the current pub building dates from 1897, it was built on the site of an early 18th century pub with the same name. The earliest reference I can find to the pub dates from the 17th of July, 1752, and reads: “On Tuesday, about Five o’clock in the afternoon, as Lieutenant-Colonel Demarr, of Col. Holmes’s late Regiment of Marines was going along Thrift Street, Soho, he was suddenly taken ill, and went into the Dog and Duck Alehouse, where a Surgeon was sent for to bleed him, but to no purpose, for he expired in a short time.”

The spelling of the street as Thrift Street in the above article must have been an error, as the name Frith Street appears on maps in the 17th century and onwards.

In 2003, newspapers were reporting that the pop star Madonna was a visitor to the Dog and Duck, and that “The ‘Material Girl’ told how she had developed a taste for Landlord at the Dog and Duck in London’s Soho, where it has been sold for about 10 years. her revelation on Jonathan Ross’s BBC talk show has caused a flurry of media activity and now the Campaign for Real Ale are claiming bitter is back in Vogue”.

A nice touch with exterior decoration to the pub is that on the corner of the pub, where there should be a window on the third floor is the following relief showing a dog with a duck in its mouth:

The French House – Dean Street

The pub has had the formal name of the French House for a relatively short period of time, it was originally called the York Minster.

Another example of being careful with sources, Wikipedia states that the “pub was opened by a German national named Christian Schmitt in 1891 and traded as York Minster”, however there are plenty of newspaper reports that mention the pub, going back several decades in the 19th century, with the earliest I could find being from 1837 when a horse trotting challenge was being advertised and that the challenge could be backed at the York Minster, Dean Street, Soho.

The French theme to the pub has been around for some time, in parallel to being called the York Minster.

Although an early landlord was a German national, the pub was for long managed by a Belgian national, one Victor Berlemont, who had a son, Gaston Berlemont who was born in the pub in 1914.

Gaston was a British national, who lived in Soho, and served in the RAF, and became the landlord of the York Minister when his father died in 1951. He continued as landlord until retirement, rather appropriately on Bastille Day in 1989.

The pub was popular with the Free French forces during the Second World War and later Gaston promoted a Gallic image for the pub, and long before the change of name, it became known as “The French”.

There are two films of Gaston’s retirement on the 14th of July 1989 on YouTube. Part 1 is here (if received via email, you will need to go to the post on the website here to view):

And part 2 is here:

As can be seen in the above two films, the name of the pub in 1989 was the French House, and the name change had taken place 5 years earlier in 1984 after the fire at the real York Minster, when apparently donations for the repair of the church in York were being received at the pub in Soho, which Gaston did forward to York (and there is a story that wine destined for the pub in Soho reached the real York Minster in York).

The change in name was really just a formality for the pub due to its decades long association with a French influence. For example, in The Tatler on the 28th of January, 1953, the pub was described as follows: “York Minster, Dean Street, opposite bombed St. Anne’s. Upstairs in the small pub there is excellent, plain French cooking to be had most days. It is lucky if you happen to like one of the plats du jour, for they are one of the best bets. You can have wine by the glass and those who favour the drink can watch absinthe dripping into their glass on the zinc downstairs. There is nothing very French-looking about the York Minster (nothing except the period, to remind you of the Toulouse-Lautrec film), but most of the clientele is Soho-French. So is the patron.”

The French influence continues to this day, with the French flags on the front of the pub, and with the menu at the first floor restaurant.

Admiral Duncan – Old Compton Street

The Admiral Duncan in Old Compton Street, known as Soho’s oldest gay pub, was the scene of a bomb attack in 1999, when it was the third London site attacked by the so called at the time “London Nail Bomber”.

Although no one had died in the previous two attacks, the bomb at the Admiral Duncan killed three,. When the attacker was sent for trial, newspapers summarized the accusations: “A 23 year old engineer accused of murdering three people in London nail bombings was committed for trial yesterday at the Old Bailey. **********, of Cove, Hampshire, is accused of murdering Andrea Dykes, John Light and Nicholas Moore in a bomb blast at the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho, central London, on April 30th. He is also accused of three counts of causing an explosion relating to the bombing at Electric Avenue, Brixton, south London, on April 17th, a bombing in the Brick Lane, east London the following Saturday and at Soho on April 30th.”

He should have been charged with four murders as Andrea Dykes was pregnant.

The choice of bomb locations, where minority and vulnerable people were targets gives some indication of the attacker’s motivations as a neo-Nazi, who used bombs packed with nails, designed to cause maximum harm to anyone in the vicinity of the explosion, and many of the 139 injured in the three attacks had horrific injuries.

He told police that he “wanted to be an infamous murderer who started a race war”.

The above newspaper report included his name, however I have deleted it, as people who do this should not have their names remembered (as was his intention), rather they should be consigned to oblivion. He was given 6 life sentences, and hopefully should never be released, although he is eligible for parole in his seventies.

The Admiral Duncan pub seems to date from the early decades of the 19th century, I suspect it was 1826 as the Admiral Duncan was advertising for staff, for example with the following advert from the Morning Advertiser on Thursday 15th of June, 1826: “WANTED in a Public-House a SERVANT of ALL-WORK. A young Woman of good character may apply at the Admiral Duncan, Old Compton-street, Soho.”

The bomb attacks were the result of an individuals hatred and discrimination of other communities, and the above advert of staff in 1826 ended with another example, as it ended with “No Irish person need apply”.

A couple of month later, the Admiral Duncan was advertising for “a SERVANT of ALL-WORK – A young English WOMAN of good character”.

I do not know if this was specific to the landlord of the Admiral Duncan in 1826, as you do not see this type of discrimination that often in adverts for pub staff in the early 19th century.

The pub is named after Admiral Adam Duncan, who was the Admiral in charge of the Royal Navy fleet that defeated the Dutch fleet in the battle of Camperdown (or Camperduin, the Dutch name of the town on the coast of the Netherlands) off where the battle was fought.

The battle was a significant victory, and is ranked as one of the most important actions in the history of the Royal Navy.

Duncan was made a Viscount and received an annual pension of £3,000 as a reward for his success, and there seems to have been a number of pubs given the name of the Admiral Duncan in the first half of the 19th century.

Comptons – Old Compton Street

Comptons in Old Compton Street is another Soho LBGTQ pub, however the current name is relatively recent.

It started out as the Swiss Hotel a private hotel that seems to have catered for the Swiss community as in 1874 is was advertising for “a young Swiss”, who also speaks English. Whether having Swiss staff was to support a Swiss customer base, or as a novelty for English customers is not clear.

It could be the former as a year earlier in 1873, there was an advert placed by a Swiss person who gave the Swiss Hotel as an address, and who was looking for a position as an indoor servant, and among their abilities were listed as being able to speak French, German and Italian, and a little English. The hotel seems to have been a place for those from Switzerland to stay.

The earliest reference to the Swiss Hotel I can find dates from 1871 when there is a record of the license being transferred from James Dennler to Rodolphe Stauffer.

The Survey of London volumes for Soho entry for the Swiss Hotel opens with “This was built in 1890 to the plans of the architects W. A. Williams and Hopton, who exhibited their design in that year at the Royal Academy.”

The Survey of London does not make any mention of the Swiss Hotel as being in Old Compton Street before 1890, however taking newspapers from the 1870s and 1880s, there are mentions of the Swiss Hotel, and 1890 could be a reference to the build of the current building on the site, rather than the institution of the Swiss Hotel.

The last reference to the name Swiss Hotel I could find is from 1969 when it was the site for a large gathering of West End members of the National Association of Theatrical and Kine Employees union.

By 1972 is was known as the Swiss Tavern, and was the home of the Playroom Theatre Club, which was advertised as “A new lunchtime company, has been formed by Jonathan Burn and Alan West at the Swiss Tavern, 53 Old Compton Street, W.1. The aim is to present original and experimental productions, for which applicants are welcomed whether engaged in the evenings or not. Workshop exercises with emphasis not only on the group but on individual expression will be part of the activities. A number of directors, writers, actors designers and technical personnel are already collaborating but a total number of from ten to fourteen is needed.”

One of the productions put on at the Playroom Theatre Club in 1973 attracted much publicity, including the following from the “Entertainment” section of the Marylebone Mercury (excuse the language):

“On the fringe of respectability – THEATRE on the cheap is alive and doing all right in the pubs of Soho. They call it fringe theatre and it certainly is in every way – on the borderline of respectability, like Soho itself, and of bankcrupty.

The Playroom Theatre Club, above the Swiss Tavern pub in Old Compton Street has been going a year almost with productions like ‘Areatha in the Ice Palace’ and ‘Wankers’.

The Swiss Tavern is opposite a sex-movie club, next door to a strip club. No wonder one of the biggest hits by Playroom was ‘Wankers’, which had to be retained for an extra week.

People who think ‘ pornography’ must be awfully disappointed, said producer Judith Wills from Missouri.”

Later in the article, the producers complained that “So far, despite pressure, the Arts Council has refused to help this sort of fringe theatre”, and that this refusal could have been due to being over a pub. There was a number of other fringe theatre groups operating in pubs across Soho.

The Playroom Theatre Group does not seem to have lasted beyond the end of 1973, however the Swiss Tavern continued to be one of the Soho pubs frequented by those in the acting profession.

The name Swiss Tavern disappeared in the 1980s, and by the end of the decade it was known as Compton’s, and in the 1990s, its current identity was well established, as this report from the Scotsman on the 13th of June 1996, illustrates:

“SORRY, but there only is one game in town – England v Scotland on Saturday. It is understood that much of London pubs, clubs and other places of entertainment, plans to close down in spite of Scottish fans having one of the best reputations in world football.

But at least one pub will be open. Compton’s in Old Compton Street run by Stevie and George from Glasgow, will welcome Scots. One thing to remember; it is reputed to be Soho’s best gay pub.”

The Golden Lion – Dean Street

The Survey of London records that the Golden Lion existed in 1728, so this is an old pub, although the building on the site today is a later version of the pub, having been built at the end of the 1920s for the brewer William Younger.

The current version of the Golden Lion does retain a number of features saved from the earlier building, including this rather impressive sun dial from the time before the rebuild when it was known as Ye Golden Lion:

The journalist, author, TV presenter, and Soho drinker, Daniel Farson wrote the book “Soho in the Fifties” about his time in Soho during the decade, the people he met, the pubs restaurants etc. The book contains many of Farson’s photos of life around Soho at the time, and it is a brilliant book for a snapshot of Soho, a Soho that for the most part, has been lost.

He wrote about the Golden lion under the title “The Queer Pubs”:

“In Soho there were two ‘queer pubs’ as they were called then, the Fitzroy off Charlotte Street to the north, and the Golden Lion in Dean Street to the south. Though the Lion was a few doors away from the French, the two pubs had so little in common that they might have been in separate towns. Married couples wandered into the Lion by mistake and left swiftly when they discovered they were surrounded by strange men, or remained, delighted by their chance discovery, but Gaston (at the French) did not encourage stragglers who crossed the frontier for a change of scene, and one of his quizzical stares sufficed to scare them off again. Only a few customers were regulars of both.”

The Golden Lion later achieved some notoriety as the serial killer Dennis Nilsen picked up at least one of his victims at the pub.

The Coach & Horses – Greek Street

On the sign on the corner of the pub, the Coach & Horses claims that it is “the West End’s best known pub”, and on the pub’s website, that “it’s a deeply loved London institution with a rich history”, but fails to put any of this history on the pub’s website.

The claims seem to stem from one man, Norman Balon, the Landlord for an incredible length of time from 1943 to 2006, when he lived up to his self proclaimed reputation as being the “rudest landlord in London”.

Typical of the many accounts of Norman Balon’s last day at the Coach and Horses is the following:

“The strangely coveted title of London’s Rudest Landlord is now vacant, as its long-time holder, Norman Balon of the Coach and Horses, Soho, tucks the sale price of the pub into his locally made suit and takes the Underground home to his home in Golders Green.

Mr. Balon, 79, has told more people to drink up and leave than Jeffrey Bernard drank large vodka-ice-and-sodas at his bar side during the decades he wrote Low Life, his celebrated Spectator column.

Last week the pub overflowed like a badly pulled pint with well-wishers. Richard Ingrams, founder of satirical magazine Private Eye made a two-sentence speech: ‘the only man grumpier than me. I salute you’.

Writer Beryl Bainbridge cheered, Spencer Bright, biographer of both Boy George and Norman Balon, looked sad.

For this is the pub behind Michael Heath’s extraordinary cartoon strip ‘The Regulars’ in Private Eye, which once had one Regular saying to another ‘I’m sorry I was rude last night. You see, I was sober’.

At the farewell bash, Heath remarked ‘I don’t remember Norman being rude. in fact, i don’t remember anything from those years’.

By classic Soho standards of stiletto rudeness, Norman Balon was a measured man. Tourists asking for sandwiches might, though, be puzzled to be told to leave and not come back. It was a defense mechanism against bores. The Coach, as everyone called it, was a pub for talking, since Mr. Balon would tolerate no jukebox, among other things.”

The Coach and Horses featured in the play, “Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell”, by Keith Waterhouse, which opened in London at the Apollo Theatre in Shaftesbury Lane in October 1989, with Peter O’Toole playing the lead character of Jeffrey Bernard, with a small supporting cast.

Jeffrey Bernard was a journalist who wrote for Private Eye and Sporting Life, and for the Spectator under the name of “Low Life”, where he wrote about his life in Soho and in the Coach and Horses where he was very much a regular.

The magazine Private Eye held their lunches at the pub for 25 years.

Norman Balon’s biography was ghost written by Spencer Bright and went by the title of “You’re Barred, You Bastards: The Memoirs of a Soho Publican”.

There is a conversation with Norman Balon here (again click here to go to the website if you cannot see the post):

There is a 1987 BBC Arena documentary about Jeffrey Bernard which includes film within the Coach & Horses:

And another documentary on Jeffrey Bernard – Reach for the Ground, which includes some film of Soho as it was:

The Coach and Horses is Grade II listed, both the pub building, and as part of a block of adjoinging buildings. It is listed for the exterior architecure and for surviving internal features.

The first record of a license for the Coach and Horses dates back to 1724. The current building dates from around 1840, and the pub was remodeled and extended in 1889, with the interior bar from 1930 when the pub was taken over by Taylor, Walker & Company.

It is a wonderful pub, and a reminder of a lost Soho.

The Three Greyhounds – Greek Street

The Three Greyhounds claims that the name comes from the greyhounds that roamed the area that became Soho, when it was open field.

The pub appears to date back to 1837, when Soho was a densely built and populated area of London, and greyhounds roaming the fields would have been a couple of centuries before. The mock Tudor styling of the pub probably intends to give its appearance some age.

I cannot find too much of a history to the Three Greyhounds, apart from it being a typical Soho pub which attracted its fair share of writers, musicians, those active in the theatre industry etc. All who were once part of the drinking culture of Soho.

The journalist, author, TV presenter, and Soho drinker, Daniel Farson quoted earlier in the section on the Golden Lion, included in his book a summary of “A Soho Type of Person” and which encapsulates how drinking was such an important part of the culture of Soho:

A Soho Type of Person:

The drinkers in the French symbolised Soho in 1951.

What makes a Soho type of person? You need a Bohemian streak to find the lure irresistible. You would never contemplate going out for ‘just the one’ unless it was the one day. Soho people rarely use ‘drink’ in the singular – lets meet for a drink, or we’ll discuss it over a drink – for they know that that much singularity is absurd. Yet they take offence if someone asks them if they want ‘another’ for the semblance of self-discipline is vital.

An alcoholic hates drink; the Soho person loves it. This is why there are so few alcoholics in Soho though plenty of drunks.

Soho people do not tell ‘jokes’ and avoid the eyes of those who do. They relish true stories, especially of their friends’ disasters. equally they enjoy celebrating a friend’s success….when the friend is paying. The good luck might rub off.

A Soho person is someone:

• who is not afraid to cry in public;
• who rarely travels by public transport, preferring the privacy of taxis;
• who regards taxes of the other sort, and all brown envelopes with little windows, as an unwarrantable intrusion;
• who cashes cheques anywhere, except the bank;
• who seldom knows the date;
• who will miss a dinner appointment if he is enjoying himself;
• who has been barred from at least one pub, club or restaurant;
• whose life staggers from the gutter to the Ritz and maybe back again.

Pubs have long been an important part of life in Soho, and is one of the reasons why so many pubs remain. I will continue exploring these wonderful institutions in part 3 of my tour of Soho pubs.

For more on the author Daniel Farson quoted in this post, see my post on The Waterman’s Arms – Isle of Dogs.

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