Coach & Horses Pub
Take a look at this unassuming little corner pub. From the outside, the Coach and Horses on Greek Street looks like... well, just another Soho boozer. But step a little closer, because behind those doors lies one of the most extraordinary stories in London pub history.
London · from the walk “Soho's Secret Side”
29 Greek Street, London W1D 5DH
Take a look at this unassuming little corner pub. From the outside, the Coach and Horses on Greek Street looks like... well, just another Soho boozer. But step a little closer, because behind those doors lies one of the most extraordinary stories in London pub history.
The history of this place can be traced back to the early eighteenth century, with a licence under the name Coach and Horses recorded from seventeen twenty-four. That's over three hundred years of pouring pints on this very spot. The building you see today was constructed in the eighteen forties, and its distinctive frontage belongs to an eighteen eighty-nine remodelling.
But the Real story starts on a freezing February afternoon in nineteen forty-three. A teenage boy named Norman Balon arrived in Soho to a pub deprived of glass from Blitz bombings. His father Jack had acquired the lease that very morning, and moments later, with a brief phone call saying "leave college immediately and come and work in the pub," young Norman took his place behind the bar by three pm that afternoon. He was just sixteen years old. And he would stay for Sixty-Three years... becoming the Only job he ever had.
Norman cultivated a very specific reputation. He had his self-proclaimed title, "London's rudest landlord," printed on matchboxes. And he meant it. He was known to throw people out for wearing football shirts, shorts, or simply being a tourist too slow with their order. Someone once asked him for a Snakebite... His reply? "We don't do cocktails in here. Get out."
But here's the thing... everybody Loved it. His time in charge saw the pub come to be frequented by writers, artists, musicians, and actors, including Jeffrey Bernard, Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, Peter O'Toole, and John Hurt. The satirical magazine Private Eye held their fortnightly lunches upstairs, hoping a plentiful supply of cheap wine would prompt an indiscretion from one of the guests.
And then there was Jeffrey Bernard... the columnist who wrote the "Low Life" column for The Spectator magazine. He frequently missed deadlines, at which point the magazine would simply print the words "Jeffrey Bernard is unwell" instead of the expected column. Everyone knew what That meant. The bohemian atmosphere of the Coach and Horses was captured in Keith Waterhouse's nineteen eighty-nine play, "Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell," with the pub's interior faithfully recreated for the stage of the nearby Apollo Theatre. Peter O'Toole starred... a man who, shall we say, had been rehearsing the role his entire life.
Now, one last delicious detail. In more recent years, the Coach and Horses became reportedly the first and only pub in the country to be granted a nudist licence. Yes, you heard that correctly. Drinkers gathered for what was described as London's first nudist pub sing-along, as a protest against Fuller's Brewery's decision not to renew the landlord's lease. Only in Soho.
So take a moment. Glance through those windows. The Coach and Horses looks much the same as it did decades ago... and that is exactly the point.