Drink at the Anchor Tap

There are many reasons your author should have mentioned the Anchor Tap, a short walk from Tower Bridge, before. It is a great little Sam Smiths pub, with various cosy little rooms, a beer garden, plentiful bar games and Humphrey Smith's trademark attention to pub interior detail.


Previously, the pub was apparently synonymous with the Courage Brewery, having first been acquired by John Courage, the brewer, in 1787, and remaining the base of their operations until 1981, when the Anchor Brewery finally closed. When the Brewery was running, the pub was the place where brewery employees came to drink the fruits of their labour, and that's perhaps why it's such a comfortable place.

Your author also feels somewhat duty-bound to correct misleading articles elsewhere which suggest this was where Samuel Johnson had a room to formulate his dictionary. It seems much more likely that that was the Anchor further up the South Bank, which Ed Glinert confirms was owned by Johnson's friends Henry and Hestor Thrale. So, you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet.

For more on the Anchor Tap, try here.