The Flask Pub

The Flask Pub in Hampstead, London, is a Grade II listed Victorian public house rebuilt in 1874 on the 1701 site where Hampstead mineral water was first bottled and distributed in flasks. Originally known as the Lower Flask, it appears in Samuel Richardson's 1748 novel Clarissa. Inside, a timber screen displays five chromolithographs by Belgian artist Jan Van Beers, and a hidden brick cellar was uncovered beneath it in 1990.

London · from the walk “Hampstead Uncovered: Village Secrets & Heath Legends” · Generated

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The Flask, 14 Flask Walk, Hampstead, London NW3 1HE

How did The Flask Pub in Hampstead get its name?

Take a look at this handsome pub in front of you. The Flask. A Grade Two listed public house, standing on the very site from where the trade in Hampstead mineral water was run over three hundred years ago.

Now, the name might make you think of something you'd sip whisky from. But the truth is far stranger. Why would a pub be named after a water bottle?

Well, rewind to sixteen ninety-eight. The infant Earl of Gainsborough and his mother, the Countess of Gainsborough, gave six acres of land near the Chalybeate Well to benefit the poor of Hampstead. Chalybeate... that means water rich in iron. And people in the early seventeen hundreds believed this rusty-tasting spring water could cure everything from gout to shingles.

A man named John Dufffield began exploiting the waters commercially in seventeen oh one. The waters were bottled right here, on the site of this very pub, sealed into flasks, and then... shipped all the way down to London! The distribution, at three pence per flask, was arranged by a London apothecary called Mister Philips, who operated in Fleet Street from the Eagle and Child pub.

But here's a detail most people miss. To prevent counterfeits, Mister Philips ordered his servants to deliver a sealed ticket to each customer... bearing the image of a wolf rampant with seven crosslets. Think about that. An anti-fraud seal... for Water. That tells you just how valuable this stuff was.

This pub was originally known as the Lower Flask, to distinguish it from the Upper Flask... a tavern near the top of Hampstead hill, which was patronised by Whig grandees and writers. That Upper Flask was actually the summer meeting place for the Kit Kat Club, whose members included literary figures and political personalities. The Lower Flask, where we're standing? Its clientele was considered rather... inferior. It even appears in Samuel Richardson's seventeen forty-eight novel Clarissa as the haunt of a drunk.

Before all this, the building here was called the Thatched House, and was rebuilt in eighteen seventy-four into the Victorian beauty you see today. And if you step inside, look for the magnificent timber and glass screen dividing the two bars. On the saloon side, it carries five chromolithographs of sentimental paintings by the Belgian artist Jan Van Beers... and yes, Camra has noted the delightful irony of an artist named Van Beers decorating a pub.

One more secret. During the building of a rear extension in nineteen ninety, a vaulted brick-built cellar was uncovered... hidden beneath the pub for who knows how long. Perhaps where those precious flasks were stored centuries ago, waiting for the morning coach to Fleet Street.

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