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Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is a
Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ire ...
public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...
at 145
Fleet Street Fleet Street is a major street mostly in the City of London. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary with the City of Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was ...
, on Wine Office Court,
City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...
. Rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire of 1666, the pub is known for its literary associations, with its regular patrons having included
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
, G.K. Chesterton and
Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
. The pub is on the
Campaign for Real Ale The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is an independent voluntary consumer organisation headquartered in St Albans, England, which promotes real ale, cider and perry and traditional British pubs and clubs. With just under 155,000 members, it is t ...
's
National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors The National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors is a register of public houses in the United Kingdom with interiors which have been noted as being of significant historic interest, having remained largely unchanged for at least 30 years, but us ...
.


Age

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is one of a number of
pubs A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...
in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
to have been rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire of 1666. There has been a pub at this location since 1538. While there are several older pubs which have survived because they were beyond the reach of the fire, or like The Tipperary on the opposite side of Fleet Street because they were made of stone, this pub continues to attract interest due to the lack of natural lighting inside. Some of the interior wood panelling is nineteenth century, some older, perhaps original. The vaulted cellars are thought to belong to a 13th-century Carmelite monastery which once occupied the site. The entrance to this pub is situated in a narrow alleyway and is very unassuming, yet once inside visitors will realise that the pub occupies a lot of floor space and has numerous bars and gloomy rooms. In winter, open fireplaces are used to keep the interior warm. In the bar room are posted plaques showing famous people who were regulars. The pub is currently owned and operated by the
Samuel Smith Brewery Samuel Smith Old Brewery, popularly known as Samuel Smith's or Sam Smith's, is an independent brewery and pub owner based in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, England. It is Yorkshire's oldest brewery, founded in 1758, and one of three breweries in t ...
.


Literary associations

The literary figures
Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish novelist, playwright, dramatist and poet, who is best known for his novel '' The Vicar of Wakefield'' (1766), his pastoral poem ''The Deserted Village'' (1770), and his p ...
,
Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
,
Alfred Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...
, Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...
, G.K. Chesterton,
P. G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, ( ; 15 October 188114 February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeev ...
and
Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709  – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The '' Oxford ...
are all said to have been 'regulars'. However, there is no recorded evidence that Johnson ever visited the pub, only that he lived close by, at 17 Gough Square. At The Johnson Club supper, 13 December 1892, 'an eloquent gentleman, present, an Irish former MP, pointed out that when Johnson acted on his suggestion "let us take a walk down Fleet Street" the Cheshire Cheese must of necessity have been included among his places of call.' A 1680
broadside ballad A broadside (also known as a broadsheet) is a single sheet of inexpensive paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between the ...
called ''A New Ballad of the Midwives Ghost'' tells a fantastical story of how a midwife haunted the house where she died until she was able to induce the new residents there to dig up the bones of some bastard children she had made away with and buried there. The final lines of the ballad insist upon the veracity of the tale and even that the children's bones may be seen for proof displayed at the Cheshire Cheese.
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
had been known to use the establishment frequently, and it is alluded to in his ''
A Tale of Two Cities ''A Tale of Two Cities'' is a historical novel published in 1859 by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in ...
'': following
Charles Darnay Charles Darnay, Charles D'Aulnais or Charles St. Evrémonde is a fictional character in the 1859 novel ''A Tale of Two Cities'' by Charles Dickens. Overview Darnay is a wealthy gentleman who spends time in both France and England during the time o ...
’s acquittal on charges of high treason,
Sydney Carton Sydney Carton is a central character in Charles Dickens' 1859 novel ''A Tale of Two Cities''. He is a shrewd young Englishman educated at Shrewsbury School, and sometime junior to his fellow barrister Stryver. Carton is portrayed as a brilliant ...
invites him to dine, "drawing his arm through his own" Carton leads him to Fleet Street "up a covered way, into a tavern … where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine". R. L. Stevenson mentions the Cheese in ''The Dynamiter'' (1885), 'a select society at the Cheshire Cheese engaged my evenings.' ''A Tale of Two Cities'' was in part the inspiration for the American children's book ''The Cheshire Cheese Cat'' by Carmen Agra Deedy,
Randall Wright Randall D. Wright (born August 4, 1956) is a Canadian academic macroeconomist who advanced the fields of monetary economics and labor economics through his role in the development of matching theory. Biography Wright obtained a B.A. in Econo ...
and
Barry Moser Barry Moser (born 1940) is an American artist and educator, known as a printmaker specializing in wood engravings, and an illustrator of numerous works of literature. He is also the owner and operator of the Pennyroyal Press, an engraving and smal ...
, which is set in the pub. The Cheshire Cheese pub appears in Anthony Trollope's novel '' Ralph the Heir'', where one of the characters, Ontario Moggs, is described as speaking "with vigor at the debating club at the Cheshire Cheese in support of unions and the rights of man..." Wodehouse, though so many of his characters were members of posh London clubs, often preferred the homey intimacy of the pub. In a letter to a friend he wrote, "Yesterday, I looked in at the Garrick at lunchtime, took one glance of loathing at the mob, and went off to lunch by myself at the Cheshire Cheese." The pub is mentioned by name in some of his books as well. The
Rhymers' Club The Rhymers' Club was a group of London-based male poets, founded in 1890 by W. B. Yeats and Ernest Rhys. Originally not much more than a dining club, it produced anthologies of poetry in 1892 and 1894.''The Oxford Companion to English Literatur ...
was a group of London-based poets, founded in 1890 by W. B. Yeats and Ernest Rhys. Originally not much more than a dining club, it produced anthologies of poetry in 1892 and 1894. They met at the Cheshire Cheese and in the 'Domino Room' of the Café Royal. R. Austin Freeman in his 1913 novel ''The Mystery of 31 New Inn'' describes a luncheon at the pub in some detail, including mention of the beef-steak pudding and 'the friendly portrait of the "great lexicographer" ohnsonthat beamed down...from the wall'. According to the
Betty Crocker Betty Crocker is a brand and fictional character used in advertising campaigns for food and recipes. The character was originally created by the Washburn-Crosby Company in 1921 following a contest in the ''Saturday Evening Post''. In 1954, G ...
cookbook, both Dickens and
Ben Jonson Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
dined on Welsh rarebit at this pub, although Jonson died almost a century before the dish is first known to have been recorded.
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...
, volume ''W'', Oxford University Press, 1928, and the Compact (micrographic) edition of 1971
Soviet writer Boris Pilnyak visited the pub during his stay in London in 1923. He later wrote a story entitled "Staryi syr," ("old cheese" in Russian) a part of which takes place in the Cheshire Cheese Pub. There is a chapter devoted to the Cheshire Cheese and the 'Companions of the Cheshire Cheese' (W. B. Yeats' poem ''The Grey Rock'' 1914) in ''That Irishman: The Life and Times of
John O'Connor Power John O'Connor Power (13 February 1846 – 21 February 1919) was an Irish Fenian and a Home Rule League and Irish Parliamentary Party politician and as MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland represente ...
'' by Jane Stanford.
Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fiction ...
wrote that her fictional detective
Hercule Poirot Hercule Poirot (, ) is a fictional Belgians, Belgian detective created by British writer Agatha Christie. Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-running characters, appearing in 33 novels, two plays (''Black Coffee (play), Black Coffe ...
dined with a new client at the Cheshire Cheese in her 1924 story ''The Million Dollar Bond Robbery'', adding a description of "the excellent steak and kidney pudding of the establishment." The founding meeting of the Medical Journalists' Association took place at the 'Cheese' on 1 February 1967. At that time, health journalism was in its infancy, and medical doctors who wrote articles under their own name could be reported to the General Medical Council. From an initial membership of 48, the MJA now represents around 500 journalists, broadcasters and editors. Alexander Theroux's story "An English Railroad" is set in the Cheshire Cheese.


Polly the Parrot

For around 40 years, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese was associated with a
grey parrot The grey parrot (''Psittacus erithacus''), also known as the Congo grey parrot, Congo African grey parrot or African grey parrot, is an Old World parrot in the family Psittacidae. The Timneh parrot ''(Psittacus timneh)'' once was identified a ...
named Polly. On its death in 1926 around 200 newspapers across the world wrote obituaries, while the news was read out on radio station
2LO 2LO was the second radio station to regularly broadcast in the United Kingdom (the first was 2MT). It began broadcasting on 11 May 1922, for one hour a day from the seventh floor of Marconi House in London's Strand, opposite Somerset House. ...
.


Erotic tiles

In 1962, the pub gave the
Museum of London The Museum of London is a museum in London, covering the history of the UK's capital city from prehistoric to modern times. It was formed in 1976 by amalgamating collections previously held by the City Corporation at the Guildhall Museum (foun ...
a number of sexually explicit erotic plaster of Paris tiles recovered from an upper room. These tiles strongly suggest that the room was used as a brothel in the mid-eighteenth century.


References

*
Campaign for Real Ale The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is an independent voluntary consumer organisation headquartered in St Albans, England, which promotes real ale, cider and perry and traditional British pubs and clubs. With just under 155,000 members, it is t ...
(CAMRA), The Regional Inventory for London, Pub Interiors of Special Historic Interest.


Further reading

* * ''That Irishman: The Life and Times of John O'Connor Power'', Part Three, 'At Large', Jane Stanford, The History Press, 2011,


External links

*
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
Review by City Pubs
Review by Party Earth
{{DEFAULTSORT:Olde Cheshire Cheese, Ye 1538 establishments in England Grade II listed pubs in the City of London National Inventory Pubs Tourist attractions in the City of London