Queens Larder Review: Where a Queen Hid Food for Her Mad King | Queen Charlotte rented the cellar to store delicacies for George III while he was treated for madness nearby. His special diet was worse than his normal one and did not work.
Carpenters Arms Review: The Trade Guild That Built London’s Pubs | Named for the guild of carpenters, one of hundreds of pubs honouring the trades that actually built the city
Old Crown Review: The Word ‘Old’ Doing All the Work | A 4.1 pub that calls itself ‘Old’ and ‘Public House’ in full, layering on the heritage signals in case you missed them
Rising Sun Review: A Pub Named After the Cheapest Sky in England | One of the most common pub names in the country, and a small lesson in why the sunrise was such a big deal to people with no clocks
The Hope Review: The Cheapest Optimism in Bloomsbury | A one-word name promising the single most valuable and least deliverable thing a pub can offer
The Duke Review: The Highest Rank Below the Crown | A 4.4 pub named simply The Duke, invoking the grandest of noble titles without troubling to say which one
The Black Horse Review: The Pub and Cocktail Bar Identity Crisis | A 4.7 and a name that hedges its bets, from a venue that cannot decide which century it is in
Smugglers Tavern Review: There Was Nothing to Smuggle Here | Bloomsbury is about as far from the sea as central London gets, which makes it a bold choice for a smuggling theme
TCR Bar Review: A Pub Named After an Abbreviation | Tottenham Court Road is too long to say, so the pub has become three letters – the ultimate surrender to the way people actually talk
Marlborough Arms Review: Named After the Ancestor Everyone Forgets | Before there was Churchill, there was the first Duke of Marlborough, who won the battles the family is actually famous for
Red Lion Review: The Most Common Pub Name in England | A 4.0 pub bearing the name that appears on more pubs than any other in the country, for reasons rooted in royal heraldry
The College Arms Review: A Sports Bar in the House of Learning | Surrounded by the University of London, it has become a sports bar, which is its own quiet comment on academia
Friend at Hand Review: A Stable, a Ghost, and T.S. Eliot’s Cats | Built as a stable for 24 horses, next to London’s first ambulance station, haunted by a landlord with his throat cut, and written into a book that became a musical
Museum Tavern Review: Where Marx Drank While Writing Das Kapital | Directly opposite the British Museum, the pub where Karl Marx recovered from a day denouncing capitalism, then paid for his pint
Millers Review: The Trade That Fed the Nation | A 4.3 pub named after the miller, the medieval tradesman who ground the grain and was universally suspected of cheating everyone
Bloomsbury Tavern Review: The District Name, Straight, No Twist | A 4.3 pub on Shaftesbury Avenue that simply borrows the neighbourhood’s famous name and gets on with pouring pints
Marquis Cornwallis Review: Named After the Man Who Lost America | Charles Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown and handed the United States its independence. Bloomsbury gave him a pub.
The London Pub Review: The Most Generic Name in London | A 3.8 and a name so broad it describes roughly seven thousand other establishments in the same city
Fitzrovia Review: A Pub Named After the District Named After a Pub | The Fitzroy Tavern named the neighbourhood. Now a second pub has named itself after the neighbourhood. The snake is eating its tail.
