The Punch Tavern

The Punch Tavern on Fleet Street in London is a Victorian gin palace pub famously renamed after the satirical magazine Punch, whose writers regularly met there. Originally called the Crown and Sugar Loaf, the pub was rebuilt by architects Saville and Martin between 1894 and 1897. It features a tiled entrance corridor, mosaic flooring, a barrel-vaulted skylight, and canvas paintings of Mr. and Mrs. Punch.

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

Punch Tavern, 99 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DE

How did London's Punch Tavern get its name?

Welcome to ninety nine Fleet Street... and one of London's most Magnificent survivors of the Victorian drinking age. This is the Punch Tavern.......... Now, before you even step inside, take a look at that entrance corridor. It's unlike anything else in a London pub β€” extensive tiling, a mosaic floor, etched mirrors, and on either side of the inner doors, large canvas paintings of a very sinister-looking Mister and Missus Punch. It feels like walking into a jewel box... a jewel box that serves pints.......... This pub wasn't always called the Punch Tavern. The original name was the Crown and Sugar Loaf. So what happened? Well, in eighteen forty one, something extraordinary was brewing on Fleet Street β€” and it wasn't beer. A writer named Henry Mayhew and a wood-engraver called Ebenezer Landells founded a satirical magazine called Punch, on an initial investment of just twenty five pounds. It was jointly edited by Mayhew and a man named Mark Lemon. And here's where the drinking comes in... The name "Punch" referred to the puppet Mister Punch, but Also to a joke about editor Lemon β€” that "punch is nothing without lemon."

...... And those writers and illustrators? Much of the brilliance and satire that filled the magazine's pages was actually formulated when its staff were half-cut down the pub! The weekly staff meeting took place over dinner, and the topic for each edition's cartoon would be determined over cigars and brandy. Because the magazine's staff met here so regularly, the pub owner changed its name to Punch in their honor.......... Now look around at the architecture. The building you see today was rebuilt in two phases by architects Saville and Martin β€” first the Fleet Street frontage in eighteen ninety four to ninety five, then the Bride Lane side in eighteen ninety six to ninety seven. They designed it in the style of a gin palace β€” originally a lavish bar selling gin, later a term for any ornate Victorian pub. Notice the barrel-vaulted skylight, the acanthus frieze, the ceiling divided into panels by scrolls and garlands.......... And that magazine? Punch was responsible for giving us the modern use of the word "cartoon" to mean a comic drawing. They humorously borrowed the term from the preliminary sketches being displayed for Parliament's new murals, and the popularity of Punch cartoons made the word stick. Its early readers included Charlotte BrontΓ«, Emily Dickinson, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.......... The magazine finally ceased publication in two thousand and two... but this pub remains. True to its gin palace roots, it now stocks over ninety different gins. So if you step inside, raise a glass to the drunken geniuses who changed British satire forever β€” one pint at a time.

Nearby stories