Ye Old Cheshire Cheese -- Fleet Street, City of London, UK - Literary Sites on Waymarking.com

There are lots of reasons to come visit Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub on Fleet Street in London. One of the oldest pubs in London, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese was rebuilt by Christopher Wren shortly after the fire in 1666 as a place where the men working on his charge to rebuild the city could find a meal in a pint after a long hard day.

There has been a pub at this location since 1538.

At the entry into the pub, a sign lists the names of all the kings and queens who have reigned in Britain during the time this pub has been open.

But another sign nearby lists some of the famous authors who have darkened the door of this historic watering hole. That sign reads as follows:

"YE OLDE CHESHIRE CHEESE

Hot & Cold Bar Food

Restaurants Open Daily For Lunch & Dinner

Private Parties Catered For

Famous Through Four Centuries
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
Rebuilt in 1667
Known haunt of Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, & Countless Others"

From wikipedia: (visit link)

"YE OILDE CHESHIRE CHEESE

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is a Grade II listed public house at 145 Fleet Street, on Wine Office Court, City of London, EC4A 2BU

. . .

Literary associations[edit]
The literary figures Oliver Goldsmith, Mark Twain, Alfred Tennyson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, G.K. Chesterton, P. G. Wodehouse and Dr. Johnson are all said to have been 'regulars'. However, there is no recorded evidence that Dr Johnson ever visited the pub, only that he lived close by, at 17 Gough Square. At The Johnson Club supper, 13 December 1892, 'an eloquent gentleman, present, an Irish Ex MP,[3] pointed out that when Dr Johnson acted on his famous suggestion "let us take a walk down Fleet Street" the Cheshire Cheese must of necessity have been included among his places of call.'

Charles Dickens had been known to use the establishment frequently, and due to the pub's gloomy charm it is easy to imagine that Dickens modelled some of his darker characters there. The pub is famously alluded to in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities: following Charles Darnay’s acquittal on charges of high treason, Sydney Carton invites him to dine, "drawing his arm through his own" Carton leads him to Fleet Street "up a covered way, into a tavern … where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine". R.L.Stevenson mentions the Cheese in The Dynamiter (1885), 'a select society at the Cheshire Cheese engaged my evenings.' A Tale of Two Cities was in part the inspiration for the American children's book The Cheshire Cheese Cat by Carmen Agra Deedy, Randall Wright and Barry Moser, which is set in the pub. After a visit with friends Kates, Erin and Lauren to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on one misty London Night in 2002 authors Carmen Agra Deedy and Randal Wright were inspired to write a novel for young children titled "The Cheshire Cheese Cat : a Dickens of a tale". The novel takes place at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Pub and centers around a cheese loving cat named Skilley, who despises the thought of eating a mouse, and a mouse named Pip. The two become friends as the tale unfolds. The book opens with the line "He was the best of Toms, He was the worst of Toms" a parody the book by Charles Dickens who makes his appearance in the book. The book is illustrated by Barry Moser.

The Cheshire Cheese pub appears in Anthony Trollope's novel "Ralph the Heir", where one of the characters, Ontario Moggs, is described as speaking "with vigor at the debating club at the Cheshire Cheese in support of unions and the rights of man . . ."

Wodehouse, though so many of his characters were members of posh London clubs, often preferred the homey intimacy of the pub. In a letter to a friend he wrote, "Yesterday, I looked in at the Garrick at lunchtime, took one glance of loathing at the mob, and went off to lunch by myself at the Cheshire Cheese." The pub is mentioned by name in some of his books as well.

The Rhymers' Club was a group of London-based poets, founded in 1890 by W. B. Yeats and Ernest Rhys. Originally not much more than a dining club, it produced anthologies of poetry in 1892 and 1894. They met at the Cheshire Cheese and in the 'Domino Room' of the Café Royal.

According to the Betty Crocker cookbook, both Dickens and Ben Jonson dined on Welsh rarebit at this pub, despite the fact that the latter died almost a century before the dish is first known to have been recorded.

The Soviet writer Boris Pilnyak visited this pub during his stay in London in 1923. He later wrote a story entitled "Staryi syr," ("old cheese" in Russian) a part of which takes place in the Cheshire Cheese Pub. There is a chapter devoted to the Cheshire Cheese and the 'Companions of the Cheshire Cheese' (W.B Yeats' poem 'The Grey Rock' 1914) in 'That Irishman: The Life and Times of John O'Connor Power' by Jane Stanford.

A 1680 broadside ballad called A New Ballad of the Midwives Ghost tells a fantastical story of how a midwife haunted the house where she died until she was able to induce the new residents there to dig up the bones of some bastard children she had made away with and buried there. The final lines of the ballad insist upon the veracity of the tale and even that the children's bones may be seen for proof displayed at the Cheshire Cheese."

Short Description: Historic pub and the setting for a children's book Book Title: The Cheshire Cheese Cat : a Dickens of a tale First Year Published: 2011 Author's Name: Carmen Agra Deedy and Randal Wright Name of Waymarked Item: Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Pub Location of Item: Fleet Street, London, UK More Information: The pub is the setting for the book, about a cat who lives in the pub ostensibly to be a mouser, but who cannot stand to eat mice and so befriends them Admission Price?: 0.00 (listed in local currency) Link to more information about the book or waymarked item.: [Web Link]

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