Cittie of Yorke

The Cittie of Yorke is a historic pub on High Holborn in London boasting what is claimed to be the city's longest bar on a site serving drinks since 1430. Rebuilt in the 1920s, the interior features private wooden snugs for lawyers and giant 1,100-gallon vats above the main bar. Welsh poet Dylan Thomas penned a 44-line poem at the pub in 1951.

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

Cittie of Yorke, 22 High Holborn, London WC1V 6BN

When were pubs first established on the site of the Cittie of Yorke in London?

Look up at this building. An unassuming exterior, adorned with a swinging copper sign and a mock-Tudor facade. It looks like something from the age of Henry the Eighth. But here's the first twist in our story... almost none of it is genuinely old.......... Although the current building is a rebuilding of the nineteen twenties, the buildings on this site have been pubs since fourteen thirty. That's right... nearly six hundred years of continuous drinking on this Exact spot. The pub that stood here in sixteen sixty six survived the Great Fire of London, because the fire stopped by Holborn Circus just down the road.......... In sixteen ninety five, the pub was rebuilt and named the Queen's Head. In the next century, a garden was planted in front, and the name changed to the Queen's Head Coffee House. That's right... for a time, this wasn't a beer house at all.......... A wine merchant named George Hennekey purchased the pub in eighteen thirty one and rebuilt it again. And it was Hennekey who created the Famous long bar... the one that still stretches before you inside. The pub claims to have the longest bar in London, flanked on one wall by giant vats, each holding up to eleven hundred gallons.......... Now, about those Enormous barrels looming over the bar. Were they ever actually full? It's unclear if these thousand gallon barrels ever really held any beer. But here's a story that might answer that question. During the Blitz on London in World War Two, the landlord of the day Drained the port from the large vats above the main bar... out into the gutter, for fear they might come down and cause more damage than a bomb! Imagine... hundreds of gallons of fine port, washing down High Holborn.......... And if you step inside, look for the row of private wooden cubicles on the opposite wall. These enclosed snugs almost resemble confession boxes. They allowed lawyers from the nearby Inns of Court a bit of extra privacy for confidential conversations with their clients.......... One more gem. In nineteen fifty one, the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas penned an impromptu drinking ditty here, a forty four line ode, a humorous tribute to the bar's warm ales and eclectic patrons, featuring punning character names like Mister Watts-Ewers and Mister Alf Measure. It wasn't discovered until twenty fourteen, when a former union leader found it among papers belonging to his late parents-in-law who knew Thomas.......... Today, the pub is owned and operated by Samuel Smith Old Brewery... an independent brewery based in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, established in seventeen fifty eight. It claims to be Yorkshire's oldest brewery. It's one of the few remaining British breweries to employ a traditional nineteenth century Yorkshire Square fermentation system built of Welsh slate. And their brewing water is drawn from the Original eighty five foot well, sunk when the site was established.......... So when you order your pint of Old Brewery Bitter in there... you're drinking history. From a well sunk in seventeen fifty eight, through slate squares older than most nations, served across what may be the longest bar in London... in a spot where people have been raising glasses since before Columbus set sail.

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