Drink at the Cock Tavern

A Grade II listed Victorian pub, the Cock Tavern on Fleet Street was built in 1887 to replace a notorious 17th century inn frequented by famous Londoners Samuel Pepys, Alfred Tennyson and Charles Dickens across the road.


We are told that a disembodied head is said to have haunted the original pub, belonging to the Irish poet, physician and writer, Oliver Goldsmith, who was buried at Temple Church which is located nearby. It seems about as unlikely that he would have transferred to the new premises as it does that ghosts actually exist, but nevertheless it is a good story.

Your author has a special interest in the pub as this evening the latest in his regular Talking to Strangers events, which encourage you and other Londoners to have interesting conversations, takes place in a room upstairs for £3.

For more on Talking to Strangers - to which you are formally invited - click here, or for more on the pub see http://www.taylor-walker.co.uk/pub-food/ye-olde-cock-tavern-holborn/pid-C1188

_{^Picture © Christopher Hilton used under a Creative Commons license^}