Drink at the Coal Hole

Your author doesn't usually recommend Nicholson's Pubs, as they are often of dubious quality, but the Coal Hole, on the Strand, is certainly nice enough.


The website tells us that the Coal Hole occupies what was once the coal cellar for the Savoy Hotel, and that in the Victorian era, the pub was a 'song and supper' club where regulars were encouraged to sing comical songs and sentimental ballads.

We are told that Gilbert and Sullivan regularly performed here in Edwardian times, the Shakespearean actor Edmund Keane started a club in the pub for for oppressed husbands forbidden to sing in the bath here, called The Wolves' Club.

If you want to know more, see http://www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/thecoalholestrandlondon/