Oranges and Lemons say St Clement's, Eastcheap

So here we go with round two of the Oranges and Lemons tour, a mere two weeks since our initial foray into the world of citrus fruit based pub crawls. This week though we were actually in a way retreading old ground, as we were visiting another St Clements church as there are no less than two churches in London who claim the honour of being the one mentioned in the Nursery Rhyme.

Last week it was St Clement Danes and this week it's St Clements Eastcheap which as luck would have it is a mere bagatelle in terms of distance from our office location.

Firstly though, before we dive into the pubs and happenings of the night a quick word on the lead up to the night which was based around the very welcome visit of Munchkin Steve, down once again to dip his toes in southern culture from the cave-like existence of the northern wilderness. It also turned out to be the night that our illustrious national football team were due to play their final World Cup qualification match against Poland, needing a win to guarantee entry into the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

By the time that I’d realised it was a footie night though I'd already researched the pubs I wanted to visit so the last minute requests to ensure that at least one of the pubs had a big screen were left entirely in the lap of the footballing gods. That said, I did try to encourage some casual betting by seeing who would be willing to lay a couple of pound out on predicting the first scorer and final score of the match. In the end 5 of us girded our loins with stubby biros and placed the following wagers:

Munchkin Steve – Baines - 3-0 to England

Aussie Pete - Lewandowski - 2-1 to England

Big J - Gerard - 3-1 to England

No-Nickname Michael - Lampard – 3-1 to England

BGC - Sturridge - 1-0 to England

None of our fairer sex tourists seemed interested in laying out some money although we did hear later that George loves a flutter and can often be found down her local bookies with a flat cap and rollie.

Anyway onto the tour……..

Our exit from the office was somewhat delayed by the cosmetic application of the ladies meaning that Spikey Haired Ed, Pete and Steve actually left early to get a quick one in on the way. The rest of us were left stood around waiting for various touching up procedures, especially by Lucie who seemed to be going for the full war-paint look. Finally on our way, we could this week forgo the tube journey and take a leisurely stroll down Eastcheap itself, picking the three early doors drinkers up on the way to the first pub.

....a small place tucked up an alley way......

 

The Ship in Talbot Court is a small place tucked up an alley way but which never the less opens out into a sizable courtyard. It's a Nicholson’s place which meant that the scanners amongst the tour were back on track with a potential scan although this was scuppered when the certificate couldn't be located for love nor money. What could be located was beer and we once again did that trick where everyone says "we'll have what Rich is having" (in this case a beautiful pint of Gathering Storm from the Leeds Brewery) and then they all moan that it's not what they really like. Well I say all, it did meet with some approval from some quarters but the general opinion was that they'd sooner be drinking Peroni, which in the case of Pete, Steve & Ed was exactly what they were doing.

If you push this button, it operates the heaters.

Because the pub was so small and crowded, we had to split ourselves up, with 4 or 5 of us drinking outside in the courtyard and the rest huddled round a table on the inside. But maybe the external drinkers got the best of the deal as the owners of the Ship had not only fitted patio heaters but a switch that allowed you to turn them on again once the timer had run down.

A fantastic photo showing the tour both inside and outside the Ship.

 

The next place I'd selected was just a few hundred metres further on along Eastcheap by the junction of Gracechurch Street and is the sort of place I would normally avoid like the plague. Called the Folly it's a vast cavernous modern drinking hole designed for the young and trendy but from their website it seems you can also buy fruit and veg there? Thinking there might be an orange or lemon or two on offer I'd put this pub into the schedule but probably could have saved myself the trouble.

The Folly - Photo not taken on the night.

It wasn't all bad and I should be fair as there was a choice of two beers which places like this don't normally have at all. Plumping for pints of Woodfords Wherry it was far too cold but at least it wasn't bottles of Becks or Stella. (Joke for the murder mystery people there.)

So with two pubs down and two to go it was now time to move on to the Church for the evening and it was just a quick pop around the corner to the very aptly named Clement’s Lane and the aforementioned St Clement’s Eastcheap. Unfortunately the history and interesting facts about this place were fewer than the other St Clement’s and as the church is a) crammed up a narrow side street and b) undergoing restorations it was also hardly the scenic beauty that the first St Clements was - and it's only got one bell.

Amazing blue sky for an evening this time of year.

Anyway interesting facts such as they were are that it's another Sir Christopher Wren designed place which he did after the original church burnt down in the Great Fire of London. For this job he received the princely sum of a third of a Hogshead of wine which works out, I reckon, to about 420 bottles of the stuff so you'll have to make your own judgement as to whether he got a good deal or not.

SamuelPepys came and listened to a sermon here once and Edward Purcell, son of the great English baroque composer Henry, was once organist here and that folks, as Mr Buggs Bunny might say, is all.

Brenda and Steve face the camera. Ed hides in his Super Dry jacket.

The next watering hole was another Cask Marque venue called the Vintry, a Fullers pub but quite different from their normal shiny brass and traditional looking places around the corner in Abchurch Yard (but nearer St Mary Abchurch than St Clements). This was more a restaurant than a pub and although there was a good compliment of Fullers ales the focus seemed to be on the food and wine rather than the beer.

People having a good time - honestly.

 

I went for Red Fox which I think both Charlie, Jayson and Gemma followed suit on. Brenda was still on the ale mission but went for Gales Seafarers instead. Lucie and Isabelle had switched to cider, such are the vagaries of French taste buds and George was on the Vodka Fun Drinks. The rest were on lager and as such don't get a mention.

To be perfect honest the Red Fox wasn't the best it can be. I usually really like this autumnal offering from Fullers but I don't know whether this was too cold or just out of condition, but I've certainly had better, much much better.

 

BGC gets all arty.

 

It was that time of night when the lightweights left and so it was au revoir to Lucie and Isabelle and sod off to Ed (he had ironing to do or something) but the rest of us made our way down Cannon Street, pausing only to photograph St Pauls, before turning into Bush Lane and the final pub of the evening, the Bell.

There seems to be some history to the Bell as it claims to be the oldest small pub in the City of London (I guess that might depend on your definition of “small”) and also can trace the various landladies and landlords back to 1673.

The Licensees of The Bell - Exactly what it says on the tin.

 

It's certainly a charming little place that was just the right side of crowded and atmospheric and to the relief of all followers of the round ball it came complete with three of the smallest big screen you're ever likely to see in a pub nowadays.

The beer range wasn't huge, but there was Cornish Coast from Sharpes alongside their better known Doombar. I think there was another ale on as well but I'm struggling to recall the name of it.

Anyway, just about making out the footballing action though the subtitles which were taking up almost a third of the big screen’s small screen, we settled down (standing) to watch the match.

Football never makes for good reported commentary but the highlights were when the bar manageress stood on a stool to raise the volume of the telly and instantly England scored (a Rooney header) and halftime when almost everyone dashed out for a halftime McDonalds.

A tricky second half and a tricky second pint were negotiated and we were all satisfied with a 2-0 victory which will see Roy’s men safely on the plane to Rio for next year. What was less satisfying was hearing that the Bell closes at 22:00 for some reason and that none of us had won any money on the bets.

Still thems the breaks!

Oranges and Lemons say St Clement Danes

Well if ever we wanted a good turn out to kick the new tour off with a swing we certainly got it on Thursday night. A very grand total of 15 of us braved a pretty dull old evening to get things underway, which was very comforting especially as we’d lost a slack handful of tourists since completing Monopoly and starting this one. Some to new jobs, some to new countries. Hopefully it wasn’t anything I said, but the inappropriate touching might have had an effect.

For those still not crystal clear about the theme for this tour, tonight we were visiting the first church on the Oranges and Lemons rhyme, which happens to be St Clement Danes on Strand just by the Law Courts. The best thing about starting things off with this place is that the bells actually do chime the tune to Oranges and Lemons so things really could not have been set up better.

Now as all fans of Monopoly and the Monopoly Blog will have spotted we had to visit this area before, both when we did Strand itself and then again when we did Fleet Street, which joins onto Strand. But as we’re not tying ourselves to just Cask Marque pubs this time it really wasn’t much effort to find 4 likely locations to make sure we had plenty of liquid refreshment on our way around.
There were 8 of us who took the tube down to Temple and upon exiting the station stumbled straight into a fruit and veg stall. It would have been perfect if the vendor had been crying out about his “oranges and lemons, nice and fresh, 4/6 a pound” but you can’t have everything and it was still a good omen.

"Eh? You want a kilo of lemons?"

The first place on tonight’s agenda was the Walkabout bar, which is built into the same building as Temple station itself. Now, normally I avoid place like Walkabouts, vast cavernous vertical drinking dens with few features to redeem themselves, but I felt that the tour should embrace all manner of pubs and especially as Aussie Pete had arranged his diary just to make this place, it felt right to at least give it a go.

That decision was soon proved to be a foolish one. I’d not expected a range of craft ales in such a place but when the larger of choice, Heineken, is also “off” and we were left with the watered down fairy liquid that is Coors Light, things are really only going to go one way.

But at least we could retire to a comfortable seating area couldn’t we? Well no. We could perch on a couple of stools by some tables laid out like a school classroom and try to speak against the distraction of 47 big screen TVs, all playing something different and the overpowering beat of some tuneless music. The one good thing about such a well known location like this though, is that it makes for a good meeting place and we duly met up with New-Guy Micky who was cutting a very casual figure next to all us suited buffoons.

Look at everyone having a great time. Mags is phoning a taxi.

I know I sound like a grumpy old man, (hey I am a grumpy old man!) but this is my own personal pub hell which makes the fact the place was rammed and had a man dressed as a Punch and Judy show in it even more puzzling. George, Monika and straight-hair-Adele turned up and were rather unfortunately forced to down their drinks quickly as the rest of us desperately wanted out. Luckily George and Adele were only drinking vodka based fruit drinks but I have to say how impressed I was by Monika’s downing of her pint! Well, remember whose seat she’s in back in the office, she’s got a heck of a lot to live up to!

From the banks of the Embankment we cut through the Temple Inns of Court to Little Essex Street where our next pub was to be a revisit of one from the Monopoly Tour. The Cheshire Cheese is a lovely little corner boozer which is rather over looked by it’s more well known namesake on Fleet Street (Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese). Aussie Pete, New Guy Micky and Spiky Haired Ed and I had had a really nice evening there in November last year and this visit was just as nice although as the weather was a little milder we could take our drinks outside. Which was quite lucky because the 12 of us had now swelled to 15 as we met Ed, Sybil and Buddy Rob on location. The beer range seemed to be the same as before and I selected Tribute from St Austell for all those not partaking of Vodka Fun Drinks. It was certainly a welcome change to the awful Coors but some of the girls did seem to struggle. Monika on the other hand was downing a second pint of Becks very much in the style of Jack Duckworth.

Gemma and George strike their everyday work pose.

When we visited the Cheshire Cheese last time we had to walk past another pub on the opposite corner which looked everything the Walkabout wasn’t and now we weren’t handcuffed into any sort of limitation it was but a 50 metre dash from the pretty Christmas Windows of the Cheshire Cheese (Gemma’s words, not mine) and into the welcoming arms of the Edgar Wallace.

First things to note of course is that Edgar Wallace was a famous British Crime Writer and co-creator of King Kong. Quite why he has a pub named after him is maybe more mysterious than his books but that was all really by-the-by as we entered to be greeted by about 38 different barmaids who all wanted to serve us. When it came down to ordering the drinks they really did all want to take part, one would pull the pint, one would add the price up, one took the money and a different one gave me the change – perhaps they were all really pumped about meeting the BGC and just had to get in on the act? Maybe?

Pumps at the Edgar Wallace

 

The beer range was superb. I don’t know exactly how many pumps there were, but there were at least 2 porters and I rather adventurously chose the Vanilla Coffee Porter called Brazilian from the Colchester Brewery. I thought this amazing, rich, sweet, dark and very moreish, it was definitely a one pint only sort of beer but totally unique for all that. Alas the tourists, with the exception of Big-J, failed to agree with me, I never knew so many people don’t like coffee anyway? How do they get through their working days without it?

We retired to an upstairs room where there was a second bar with a mannequin with a fedora behind it and all manner of 1950s & 19060s advertisement memorabilia over the walls. You would never get bored in this place or need to take in a newspaper; you could simply read the walls!

There's a good day's lung cancer in 5 Grandees. Look, it says so there!

 

We stayed for another here round. The ale drinkers went for Triple Hop by Partners Brewery, the Vodka Fun Drink drinkers went for Vodka and Monika had another pint of Becks.

It was then onto the highlight of the evening as we meandered to the top of Strand and crossed onto the traffic island that is the home of St Clement Danes church. First interesting fact is that it is one of only two “island” churches in London and second interesting fact is that it’s the central church of the RAF, which is why there are statues of the war time commanders of Fighter and Bomber Command, Hugh Dowding and Arthur “Bomber”Harris outside.

From L-R: Bomber Harris, Air-Vice Marshall Smith, Sergeant Slaughter etc etc

 

If the tourist weren’t amazed by these monumental vignettes then they were blown away as we timed our visit to perfection and the bells rang out at 9 o clock. At first we feared we might be short changed as the Westminster Chimes and 9 “bongs” were sounded but then as if by citrus fruit magic the tune of Oranges and Lemons gently played out. It was actually quite nice!

So with music in our ears and fear in Gemma’s eyes after spotting a very dodgy looking geezer hanging around in the church gardens we made our way into Carey Street and the final pub of the evening, the tiny little Seven Stars.

It’s a cute little place but you really wouldn’t want GiantHaystacks, Hattie Jaques & Cyril Smith to come in on a pub crawl as you were trying to get served. There’s but a tiny slim corridor between the bar and standing area and anyone trying to go up the stairs to the loos needs crampons and an ice pick.

Rob and Simon wait for the appearance of Oliver Hardy.

 

Luckily we managed to sneak into one of the end rooms which gave us slightly more room amongst the legal wigs and the pub cat, who for some reason was sporting an Elizabethan ruff. He didn’t seem to mind though as long as we didn’t disturb him from his ultra cool pose against the lights on The WigBox (very very creepy) and kept tickling his ears.

A single round was consumed here, it was Truman’s Runner Ale for me, not exactly sure what the others were having, probably more Vodka Fun Drinks and no Becks as Monika had left by now. So it was quite a sensible and sober crowd that took a rather roundabout route back to Charring Cross and various tube and main lines.

Call me Andy Pandy again and I'll claw ya eyes out!

 

But still the new tour is begun, so let the bells ring out! DingDong!

Get 'em while they're fresh!

“Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing?” asked the wonderfully voiced Spine from Steam Powered Giraffe and to answer his question I would say, no.

So to that end, and after much badgering and personal requests I’ve decided to resurrect the London Pub Crawl Tour and carry on from where the Monopoly Tour left off.

Those faithful readers of the Playing Monopoly with the BGC will remember, hopefully with some sort of amusement (but probably not), the yearlong trundle around the Monopoly Board, taking in as many Cask Marque pubs as we could whilst visiting all the various property and other game squares.

And the point of this rather pointless task? Well, leaving aside the fact that it did get us out of the office and into something places just a tad more interesting, we were also following Cask Marque’s Cask Finder trail as we all (well some of us at least) tried to be crowned as Cask Marque Ambassadors.

Anyway, you need to read the first blog to see how we all got on but once this had finally finished there were a couple of forthcoming ideas muted around for a new tour, including playing Cluedo (how exactly that would work I still don’t know) or visiting some of the various blue plaques celebrating the great and the good that are littered around the streets of the capital.

But somehow none of these suggestions seemed quite right. But luckily inspiration wasn’t too far away as a superb idea was put forward by none other than one of the Monopoly Tourists, namely Big-J.

What he suggested was a similar tour round various locations, just like Monopoly, but this time following the children’s nursery rhyme “Oranges and Lemons”. For those who haven’t a clue what I’m going on about, and I was most surprised to discover that a heck of a lot of people really didn’t know this poem; you can discover a huge amount of information about the origins and the various versions here.

Big-J and I were only familiar with the 6 most common verses so we had thought that the tour might prove to be very short but the wiki page shows a much longer version and if you consider we can also “double up” on some of the locations as there’s some dispute as to which of London’s churches the rhyme refers to, there’s actually a total of at least 18 possible locations. So for those who want to plan their diaries the rhyme we’ll be following will this: 

Gay go up and gay go down,

To ring the bells of London town. 

Oranges and lemons,

Say the bells of St. Clements. 

Bull's eyes and targets,

Say the bells of St. Margret's. 

Brickbats and tiles,

Say the bells of St. Giles'. 

Halfpence and farthings,

Say the bells of St. Martin's. 

Pancakes and fritters,

Say the bells of St. Peter's. 

Two sticks and an apple,

Say the bells of Whitechapel. 

Pokers and tongs,

Say the bells of St. John's. 

Kettles and pans,

Say the bells of St. Ann's. 

Old Father Baldpate,

Say the slow bells of Aldgate. 

You owe me ten shillings,

Say the bells of St. Helen's. 

When will you pay me?

Say the bells of Old Bailey. 

When I grow rich,

Say the bells of Shoreditch. 

Pray when will that be?

Say the bells of Stepney. 

I do not know,

Says the great bell of Bow. 

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

Here comes a chopper to chop off your head. 

Chop chop chop chop

The last man's dead! 

For those who still haven’t got a clue what’s going on here’s the rules in much simpler format. 

·         We visit each of the churches mentioned in the rhyme.

·         BGC discovers at least 3 very interesting facts about the church.

·         BGC tells those facts to the rest of the tour.

·         The rest of the tour tell BGC to shut up and stop being boring.

·         We find some pubs near to the church.

·         We drink something. 

There is one final change to make clear, and I hope the good people at Cask Marque don’t strike me off their Xmas card list, but this time I’m not going to limit the tour to just Cask Marque pubs. Now let there be no misunderstanding, I still heartily endorse the Cask Marque aims and objectives but I did feel we sometimes found ourselves on a revolving carousel of Nicholson’s, Taylor Walker and Fuller’s pubs. This time I want to take in “the others” be they ale pubs, snazzy bars or horrible chain places with no redeeming features whatsoever. We may well revisit some old favourites as well and of course if there’s a new Cask Marque place to visit then, well it would be rude not to. 

So, it’s time to join hands, form a circle and begin our second childhoods. Things are going to get fruity!