The Blackfriar

The Black Friar is a Grade II* listed pub on Queen Victoria Street in London, renowned for its 1905 Arts and Crafts interior featuring elaborate depictions of medieval monks. Built on a 1279 Dominican friary site where Henry VIII's 1529 divorce trial occurred, the pub features copper reliefs, matched Italian marble, and a gold leaf ceiling added between 1917 and 1921. Sir John Betjeman saved it from demolition in the 1960s.

London Β· from the walk β€œLast Orders Through the Ages” Β· audio ~4 min Β· Generated

The Black Friar, 174 Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 4EG

Who led the campaign to save The Black Friar pub in London from demolition during the 1960s?

Take a good look at this extraordinary wedge-shaped building in front of you. The Black Friar is a Grade Two star listed public house on Queen Victoria Street in Blackfriars, London. And it holds a story that stretches back Seven hundred years... to a time when monks brewed beer on this very ground.......... This Art Nouveau masterpiece was built in nineteen oh five on the site of a former Dominican friary, which existed here from twelve seventy-nine to fifteen thirty-nine. The Dominicans wore long black mantles, which earned them the name... the Black Friars. And here's where it gets interesting for beer lovers. When King Edward the First funded the construction of this friary in twelve eighty, the complex included a dormitory, infirmary, chapel... and a Brewery. That's right. Monks were among the first commercial brewers in medieval Europe. Studies even mention beer consumption of up to Five litres a day for each monk in some monasteries. Not bad for men of God!......... But this site witnessed something far more dramatic than brewing. On the thirty-first of May, fifteen twenty-nine, a special legatine court opened right here at Blackfriars to hear the case for an annulment of Henry the Eighth's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, presided over by Cardinal Campeggio and Cardinal Wolsey. That failed divorce led Henry to break with Rome entirely... which triggered the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The friars were expelled. The brewery fell silent.......... Fast forward to eighteen seventy-five, when this pub was built. But what makes it truly special is a remodelling from about nineteen oh five by the then publican, Alfred Pettitt, and his architect H. Fuller-Clark. Both Fuller-Clark and artist Henry Poole were committed to the Arts and Crafts Movement, embracing high quality materials and hand craftsmanship. They filled every surface with jolly fat monks... eating, drinking, singing carols, catching eels. Copper reliefs show friars collecting fish for meatless Friday, singing carols over the magnificent inglenook fireplace.......... Now look for the cheeky details. The ceiling displays silhouettes of monks' heads portraying the Seven Deadly Sins... but one is Missing. Which one? Lust! Well, this IS a pub after all.......... The most remarkable part is the barrel-vaulted area at the back, built under the adjacent railway between nineteen seventeen and twenty-one. Its dining area is clad in matched Italian marble topped with a Romanesque ceiling in gold leaf.......... And we nearly lost All of this. The building was nearly demolished during a phase of redevelopment in the nineteen sixties, until it was saved by a campaign spearheaded by poet Sir John Betjeman. Betjeman was a passionate defender of Victorian architecture who also helped save Saint Pancras railway station from demolition. Thank goodness for poets who love pubs.......... One last gem. The lettering on the outside of this pub directly inspired the title typeface in the opening credits of Blackadder Two. So next time you watch Rowan Atkinson scheming his way through Elizabethan England... you'll know where that look came from. Now... step inside, order a proper cask ale, and raise a glass to the monks who brewed here first.

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