Ye olde pub crawl
10 pints in five famous Holborn pubs
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Years back, my friends and I did something crazy and went drinking in Holborn. We planned our outing on a WhatsApp group called “Ye olde pub crawl,” then spent the night in snugs, grand rooms and the freezing smoking areas of pubs with no space inside. When last orders came, we capped things off with a meal at McDonald’s Chancery Lane.
I still like these famous old pubs, but I now see them with clearer eyes. It was this Londonist piece that did it, because it debunks many of their historical claims. It also confirmed something I’d realised already: businesses are more likely to overstate their history than play it down.
While E Pellicci was founded in 1900, its intricate wooden interior is a mere 78 years old. Regency Cafe’s septuagenarian shell is original, but its floors and seats are probably only in their fifties. I don’t think a refit negates an earlier founding date, but I respect those who do. They include Mario Saggese, who dates his eponymous caff to 1989 even though his grandad opened one in the same place 31 years earlier.
With old pubs, the gap between the date on the door and the fixtures and fittings inside can be even wider. Take Ye Olde Mitre, which is famous for being established in 1546 but contains little over a century old. It is one of thousands of old pubs that have been modified, something I have nothing against if done with care. All of the refits I’ve mentioned have themselves aged, and this is what I find interesting about London’s oldest pubs: not their founding dates, but the many lives they’ve lived since.
I’ve gone back to five of these places lately – all in Holborn – to make sense of their multilayered oldness. For the purposes of this piece I spread out my visits, and drank a single pint in each place twice. But you could go to them all in one night, as part of your own ye olde pub crawl.
Princess Louise
Like all central London pubs, the Princess Louise is rammed when you’re most likely to drink in it. If you can come before 4pm, it’s a more pleasant place to hang out – and you can claim a whole compartment to yourself, for a proper look at the tiles, the ceiling and the rest of the florid Victoriana.