October 2024. Bishopsgate. Or is it Smithfield ? Or Farringdon ?
A first visit to the City of London in the GBG25 ticking year.
As Simon so eloquently notes,
that first trip to the City is always a joy, particularly with a visit to a place owned by a company who seem to have given up cask for (even duller) keg.
Always photogenic, the 15 minutes from Farringdon down towards the Stock Exchange and St Pauls is, alone, better than 96% of anything else in the world.
Post-Covid, you can even dawdle in Smithfield Market, where Paul Mudge tells me it was once possible to have five pints (of what ?) before sunrise.
But what would the City pubs be like at 5pm on a Wednesday in October ?
Well, the Bishop’s Finger was busy enough (oo-er) for me,
though table reservations for folk called “Kaleidoscope” suggest it’s not the market traders filling it up.
They’ve stopped brewing Bishop’s Finger for the pub, but these days Spitfire is rare enough,
but one look at the terrible glass and part-time head prepares me for NBSS 2.5 disappointment, £6.15 of it, too. You know, 25 years ago I scored that very beer a 5 in the Stratford Spoons.
No-one is wearing suit and tie, so for the first time in EC1 I don’t look scruffy, which I find mildly disappointing. Still, the staff are pleasant and polite, and obviously much less stressed than on a pre-Covid after-work session. There’s pros and cons to that easing off of trade.
Beer, and playing of Coldplay’s Yellow, apart, it’s the sort of cosy London pub I like. I must give Mabel’s Tavern at King’s Cross another visit.
But is the Bishop the King of the central London Guide newbies ?
Nope.
retiredmartin 
When I was an Allied Breweries trainee in the early 80s I did a couple of weeks in a Taylor Walker managed house (the Victoria) on the corner of Farringdon Road. It had a 5-8 AM licence , ostensibly for Smithfield workers. Shock to the system. I remember a bus conductor who used to hop in if the traffic lights were helpful and bolt a neat double vodka to keep himself going.
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I read that as “bus driver” initially !
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Anonymous, The only pub on the corner of Farringdon Road I’ve known with an early morning license was the former Watneys Penny Black, now the Clerkenwell Tavern, on the corner of Exmouth Market. Opposite Mount Pleasant Sorting Office it was well used by postal workers rather than bummarees from Smithfield Market half a mile south-eastwards.
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The Victoria is long gone but I have definitely not misremembered a week of my life, even it was 40 years ago.
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I wasn’t doubting you. There’s probably none of us knew all the early morning pubs.
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“where Paul Mudge tells me it was once possible to have five pints (of what ?) before sunrise” but only in winter, Youngs in the Hope, Bombardier in the Cock Tavern, DBA in the Hope and Anchor and rarely used the New Market.
I intended going for a Bishops Finger in Mabels Tavern yesterday evening but the Doric Arch was nearer.
The Bishops Finger, which I first knew as the Rutland, is on the itinerary for Thursday 14th November.
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I remember delivering a presentation to Dewhursts near Smithfield at 8am and then we all piled into a pub for breakfast and a couple of pints. Happy days.
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Yes, happy days indeed. I was fortunate in being able to have a Smithfield breakfast about fifty times over quite a few years.
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Martin, your beer score, along with the extortionate price at the Bishop’s Finger, should be enough to question the judgment of the local CAMRA branch for selecting this pub for the Guide, in the first place.
Like Stafford Paul, I remember the pub as the Rutland, and whilst from the photos you have posted, it still looks a pretty decent boozer, the lacklustre beer provides further proof that Sheps have all but given up on cask. (See contradictory statements put out by the brewery, recently.
Most Kent drinkers would have told you that, a decade or more ago. Shepherd Neame are little more than a contract lager , brewing company, that just happens to have some rather good looking pubs!
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From being there a few days ago, I’m not sure that £6.15 is too unusual in London.
I shall check further though with three more visits in the next four weeks.
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The Fox & Anchor was the famous pub in the area in the 80s when it came to food, with their enormous Mixed Grill which was basically half a dozen layers of chips separated by layers of sausages, chops and other meats (one type per layer). Trying to finish it was a relatively popular City challenge and I think that if you did, it was on the house. I remember the pub as Allied at the time but see that it is now Youngs. The 1986 local guide has very unusual hours for the pub – 0600 to 1500 Mon – Fri only.
[IPW]
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Thanks Ian.
The Fox and Anchor featured in a CAMRA Guide in the late ’90s, probably the one on city pub crawls I mentioned in relation to Nottingham the other day.
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I had a very bad experience in the Shep’s Princess of Prussia recently. All three beers were undrinkable p*ss. All were warm and oxidised and the Spitfire was vinegar. So much so I wrote to the brewery who said as it is leased, nothing they could do.
They have given up, but unfortunately they have some very appealing, but extortionately priced pubs. Shame on them.
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Couldn’t put it better myself, Peter.
Poorly managed pubs, no interest in cask. I’m amazed Sheps have any pubs in the GBG; the town pubs run on lager, the rural pubs on wine.
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IPW, That’s exactly how I remember the Fox and Anchor, hipsters who’d been up all night having enormous breakfasts and posh drinks. I’d usually get in the historic Hope and then for a lovely breakfast the Cock Tavern, built after the 1958 fire and attracting the most market workers. The New Market couldn’t really compete against the other three.
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