Introduction

The inhabitants of London have been imbibing a variety of wine, beers and meads for a very long time. Not too long ago, close to my old hunting grounds just off the Old Kent Road in south east London, a brooch made from jasper was excavated and engraved upon it was the head of a Silenus. That’s a male nature spirit, a human with the ears and tail of a horse ... and a permanent erection. In Greek mythology a Silenus is the tutor to the wine god Bacchus. So the engraving is of a guy who taught the guy who taught the world how to enjoy a few beers. For my money the brooch represents the perfect divinity for Old London Town, the days when drink flowed as freely as the waters of the River Thames.

The Prospect of Whitby commemorates its location close to Execution Dock. Nobody knows for sure but some historical accounts suggesting the first public hanging on the site as early as the 1540s.

By the thirteenth century London already had a reputation for the ‘immoderate drinking of the foolish.’ By 1574 there were already twenty-six breweries producing vast quantities of beer for the thirsty populace with increasingly creative names such as Angel’s Food, Lift Leg, Stride Wide and my personal favourite Mad Dog. I wonder how many pints had to be consumed before a Londoner started to display the behavioural characteristics indicative of the name. It brings to mind memories of Harry ‘the Dog’, the infamous Londoner and Millwall fan made famous by a slue of 1970s documentaries for his drinking exploits and ensuing solo ‘mad dog’ attacks on thousands of opposing fans.

The Mad Dog was not a trend setter, rather following in the footsteps of those Londoners who went before him. "Henry Peachman in The Art of Living (1692) conjoins the reader to ‘…be aware of beastly drunkenness, some are found sometimes so drunk, who, being fallen upon the ground, or, which is worse, in the kennel, are not able to stir or move again.’

By the early 1700s a budding young diarist commented of London that, ‘to see the number of taverns, alehouses etc. one would imagine Bacchus is the only God that is worshipped there.’ The problems all this drinking caused did not go unnoticed by the authorities. According to John Snow, the problems of excess drinking were so widespread that 200 taverns had to be closed down (more research: when/who ordered the closure).

 Throughout the centuries London’s drinking culture was not missed by those with a literary bent. In Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales," the character most famous for drinking alcohol is the Miller, described as a bawdy, drunken, and rowdy character, on the pilgrim’s walk from London to Canterbury. The Miller was practically the poster boy for medieval binge drinking! If time travel were possible, you’d probably find him leading a pub crawl through old London, clinking tankards and challenging everyone to a raucous storytelling contest. Is the secret to great literature a pint in hand?

Shakespeare’s plays were replete with characters known for indulging in a drop or two of the hard stuff. Sir John Falstaff, the legendary drinker of Shakespearean lore from Henry IV, could out-tipple even the most seasoned Londoner. Whether he was philosophising over a pint or scheming his next escapade, Falstaff showed that, for him, the secret to a merry life was a full tankard and a hearty laugh. In fact, if you listen closely in any old London pub, you might still hear echoes of his boisterous laughter and his immortal toast: 'A plague of all cowards, still say I!’ My interpretation of this is that Falstaff wasn't just cursing faint-hearted knaves - he was championing the fearless, fun-loving spirit of London’s drinking culture. To Falstaff, a brave soul with a full tankard was worth a thousand sober cowards!

If the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the equal to any of their predecessors for the amount of alcohol flowing through the veins of London’s inhabitants, then by comparison the eighteenth was totally off the scale. We’re talking full blown drinking crisis, the kind of situation that if existed today would bring forth an army of counsellors and a full-blown industrial welfare complex to tackle it.

Poet and playwright Samuel Johnson – sometimes referred to as “the most distinguished man of letters in English history” - declared London was a place where, ‘a man is never happy in the present unless he is drunk.’ Most of his fellow citizen’s agreed. Historian M. D. George declared in London Life in the Eighteenth Century, ‘the consumption of strong drink was connected with every phase of life from apprenticeship onwards,’ as ale houses became associated not just with leisure but all aspects of commerce. It’s not too much of a stretch, I think, to suggest that perhaps it helped fuel the spirit of trade, risk taking and ingenuity that so was central to London’s growth towards becoming the most dominant city in the world. We’ll let the historians debate that one.

A discussion on the city’s drinking habits cannot be complete without mention of ‘the liquid fire by which men drink their hell beforehand.’ Gin. Concocted from grain, sloe or juniper by the 1750s there was something like 17,000 gin-houses in the city. Hogarth, that great portrayer of 18th century London Street scenes, in his painting Gin Alley, uses the slogan: ‘Drunk for 1d, dead drunk for 2d, straw for nothing.’ Hogarth himself summed up the disaster wrought by excessive gin when talking about his portrait: ‘In Gin Alley, every circumstance of its horrid effects are brought to view, in terorem, nothing but poverty and ruin and misery are to be seen, distress even to madness and death.’ I guess that about sums things up.

This almost unimaginably excessive drinking culture had abated by the time I came along, but going out for a drink remained a dominant part of my youth. When I was growing up along the Old Kent Road – the very place where that engraving of the Silenius was excavated – there was a mile or so stretch of road that contained thirty-two pubs. Friday and Saturday nights involved starting at one end and seeing how far you could get before closing time, or falling over time – whichever came first. So in the mid to late 1970s the idea of going down the pub still loomed large across the city and remained a central tenet of London life, encapsulated by the lyrics of post-punk band Sham 69’s classic ‘Hurry Up Harry.’ They don’t do lyrics like this anymore:

Come on come on

Hurry up Harry come on

Come on come on

Hurry up Harry come on

We're going down the pub

We're going down the pub

Now listen here Harry

If we're going down the pub

You'd better tell your mum and dad

And finish up your grub

I wish you'd listen to me

No, I don't want a cup of tea

Come on come on

Hurry up Harry come on

Ok, I admit it. I am stretching the generally accepted definition of the ‘classic’ pop song here, perhaps to breaking point, but I still love it. Go take a listen. [Spotify Link for ebook only]

Times change and the intervening years have seen a significant decline in the ale houses of the Old Kent Road; so much so that now only two remain. The reasons for this are many and varied. My own impressions are: a large immigrant population with no pub culture in their histories; cheaper beer sold at supermarkets; infinite leisure choices from computer games to in home film streaming; more awareness of health – the decline of pubs has been accompanied by an explosion in gyms; the emergence of Gen Z, possibly the most ‘proper’ and small ‘c’ conservative generation we’ve seen since Oliver Cromwell and the 16th century rise of the Puritans swept away the debauchery of Shakespeare’s London. I’m talking about their personal behaviour here, not their politics. It’s a generation that has had the misfortune to emerge under the watching and socially controlling eye of social media, had to endure the despairing message of relentless end of world climate catastrophe, and deal with the impenetrable nuances of the new intersectional sexual politics; perhaps it’s not surprising they’re a bit no drinkish.

That’s enough cultural comment for now. Despite my nostalgic lamentations not all areas have suffered such a devastating loss of public hostelries. London’s pubs are still one of its great treasures and there remain an estimated 7000 of them. They have had to adapt to survive and not many of them are now simply boozers – an old Middle-English slang term for drinking to excess – and have been updated, redecorated and many have added some pukka tukka to their offering.

Before we get going with the walks, and just to be clear, I’m not advocating you revive the old heavy drinking culture, go out and get rat-arsed and spend the night in the gutter; but if you do like a drink now and again here are some of my favourite walks around London’s pubs. As a nod to sobriety we won’t take in more than four pubs in any single walk and if you don’t drink alcohol go and get yourself an elderflower tonic with ice and maybe a slice of lime and enjoy the atmosphere. I haven’t visited all 7000 of London’s pubs – not through want of trying - and there are many, many great places out there that I’ve never heard of. So, in the spirit of research, and to ensure the walks are current, I’ve had to revisit not only the pubs of my youth but also visit many new ones. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. To spice things up a little, I’ve been helped in this regard by my good friend Billy, who set up a pub walking group with a twist: its members are required to guide others around their favourite drinking holes, the pubs in question only revealed on the day of the walk itself! So, these pub crawls are a collaborative effort, and a hearty shoutout goes to Mark Quarterman (Q) and Mark Wallace (Wall) for their spirited contributions, and for keeping the mystery alive.