Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese stands in Wine Office Court off Fleet Street in the City of London. A Grade II listed public house, it was rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666 on a site where a pub had existed since 1538. The entrance lies in a narrow alleyway and looks plain from outside. Inside, the building spreads over a large floor area with numerous bars and gloomy rooms. Some of the wood panelling dates from the 19th century, while older sections may be original. Vaulted cellars beneath the pub are thought to belong to a 13th-century Carmelite monastery that once occupied the site. The pub is recognised for its literary associations and its historic interior. Charles Dickens, G. K. Chesterton and Mark Twain were among the writers who frequented the place. Oliver Goldsmith, Alfred Tennyson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and P. G. Wodehouse are also said to have been regulars. A 1680 ballad tells a ghost story linked to the house, claiming children’s bones were once displayed there. Dickens mentions the tavern in A Tale of Two Cities, describing a dinner after a court acquittal. Visitors find several bars and rooms with open fireplaces that warm the interior in winter. Plates on the walls list famous patrons, and a glass dome over the bar holds a taxidermied parrot named Polly. The cellars contain remnants of the monastery, while upper rooms once held plaster tiles recovered by the Museum of London. The pub’s gloomy atmosphere and historic fittings make it a place where past and present meet.