Would you Adam and Eve it?

There’s a quote by P. G. Wodehouse that I think sums up my situation today. It goes thus:

I was left in no doubt as to the severity of the hangover when a cat stamped into the room.

Despite a substantial breakfast at the excellent Mike’s Café in Notting Hill (in my not inconsiderable experience, the severity of the hangover increases with the amount of time it’ll take you to get home), despite a long nap, despite having as many painkillers as is considered sensible for a person to have, it’s still with me. I choose to blame everyone except me. Particularly those damn bar staff, forcing me to buy Jägerbombs by having them there, all for sale and that.

Hold, let’s rewind and examine how I got into this situation in the first place. Along the way we will learn about some interesting bars in the West End.

You see, a friend is over from Germany, and therefore Becky B suggested a trip to the Adam and Eve in Fitzrovia. I was a little suspicious of the place (it describes itself as being based in “Noho” rather than Fitzrovia, a forced neologism that sets my teeth on edge) but was willing to bow to Becky’s recommendation. When I got there, the others were late. Curious, I asked the barman where the reserved table was. He said there was no such reservation. This was strange to me. I got a call a little later from Seb saying that they had arrived and had an entire area reserved. Now, okay, possibly the barman wasn’t aware.

However, the bar staff continued to fail to impress for the rest of the evening. One of them seemed very angry at my chums for showing up late – well, granted, it’s not great if we’re late for a reservation, but this fellow was complaining that they had turned people away because they were expecting us on time. Now, this was, I’m sorry to say, utter bollocks. The place was half empty, which for a bar off Oxford Street is amazing. If they were turning people away, that was stupid of them. And if it was really such a problem to keep the place reserved and empty, they could have un-reserved it. In either case, it’s not considered the done thing to berate your customers in such a fashion.

Another member of staff also complained to some of our chums having a smoke outside that the other staff had got the ashtrays messed up, which again is not the done thing in a customer service environment – it reflects badly on the venue as much as on any individual.

The place stopped serving at 10.30. This is strikingly early for a pub, particularly in the West End, but it’s their venue I suppose. Except that one of our party went up to get a round of drinks at 10.20 and was told that he couldn’t. When we went to investigate this strange state of affairs, for we had received no indication of last orders, the barman (the same one who told me they didn’t have our reservation) said, and I quote, “What’s in it for us if we do serve another round?” The correct answer to such an insolent question from a bartender is, “By god, you whelp of a diseased whore, I don’t know whether I’m more inclined to whip you for your impertinence or your master for his negligence, you will fetch me my drink or feel the toe of my boot up your backside!” but I restrained myself.

We did, with no end of complaints from the staff, get our drinks in the end. If it was really such an issue, they should simply have not served us. To serve us and complain and give us lip is quite beyond the pale. In conclusion, the Adam and Eve is shit.

Fortunately, Becky had an ace up her sleeve, and we went on to a basement cocktail bar on Rathbone Place rejoicing in the unusual name of Bourne and Hollingsworth. This was much more up my street. It’s a small venue, the preferred term I think is “intimate,” and the decor is very eclectic. More than one reviewer (and a member of our party) described it as being “like your grandmother’s house.” How they know what my grandmother’s house looks like is a mystery to me. The cocktail menu was superb, I am told by my cocktail-drinking friends. I stuck to beer myself. It did suffer from that cocktail bar disease of charging the price of a pint for a bottle, but the selection of lagers was suitably offbeat without being controversial. Oh, and kudos to the DJ for his taste in retro music.

When this place closed, Becky once more led the way – this time to an utterly charming place on Charing Cross Road, a members-only theatre bar known as the Phoenix Artist’s Club. I fell in love with the place instantly, it’s a proper boho old-school West End boozer. I’d love to say something meaningful about it, but by the end of the night I was utterly trashed and dancing like a twat. I should apologise to everyone who was forced to listen to me singing along to ‘Stars,’ as I recall my justification at the time was that “Les Miserables is fucking awesome.” 

When the bar closed, the survivors staggered through the ruins of the Gay Pride event to get a cab back to Becky’s place in Notting Hill. I forget exactly how things ended, although I did wake on the floor, staring at a bra (I don’t think it was mine). Hungover as all hell, we grabbed breakfast at Mike’s Café on Blenheim Crescent. Mike’s is an extremely old-skool place that offers a very hearty breakfast at a very reasonable price – I accessorised mine with one of their gorgeous milkshakes. With Notting Hill increasingly falling prey to chains, it’s good to know you can still get something really special.

Now I’m off back to bed. Goodnight.

Drown your sorrows

Yr. Humble Chronicler has been on a diet now for two weeks. I have successfully subdued the urges for chocolate, crisps and human flesh, but alcohol is another matter entirely. I could murder a pint of Guinness. Or a glass of wine. Or a washed-out-bleach-bottle of prison hooch, for that matter.

I am told that water is a wonderful thing – no calories, no harmful additives and it’s free. My response has thus far been “Yes, but when did you last hear of someone drowning in beer?” I now have to eat my words.

I am speaking of an event that took place in 1814 in St Giles, pictured right. St Giles was, for centuries, a poor district, regarded as something of a no-go area by law enforcement. A major employer in the area was the Horse Shoe Brewery, owned by Sir Henry Meux.

On the roof of this brewery were several huge storage tanks. The largest of all, holding 135,000 gallons, was the porter tank. Porter is a drink historically associated with London, its name being derived from the fact that it was much favoured by porters working on the river - a short walk from the Horse Shoe Brewery, in fact.

On October 17, an event occurred that The Times described in its subsequent report as “one of the most melancholy accidents we ever remember.” The porter tank, despite twenty-nine metal hoops reinforcing it, unexpectedly burst. The impact of the explosion destroyed the other storage tanks, resulting in a veritable torrent of over 323,000 gallons of beer pouring down on to the streets below.

The flood completely destroyed two houses in New Street as well as knocking down the back walls of the Tavistock Arms, a poulterer’s shop and two houses in Great Russell Street.

Quite apart from the initial impact damage, the incident was worsened by two factors – the fact that the ground in that area is flat, and the fact that St Giles was a slum. Many poor families lived in basements, and so the beer, with nowhere else to go, flooded their homes. Many lost everything they owned. Despite the best efforts of rescuers from the brewery and elsewhere in the neighbourhood, eight were drowned and many more injured (including an unfortunate maidservant trapped under the wall of the Tavistock Arms). The last victim died the following day from alcohol poisoning.

A somewhat unexpected consequence was a rumpus at the nearby Middlesex Hospital, where the injured were treated – patients unaware of the disaster were convinced that those coming in had been supplied with free beer and, judging by the smell, there was plenty to go around.

Tottenham Court Road, 1896. The Horse Shoe Brewery is in the foreground to the right.

Once the initial disaster was over, a  number of people decided to take advantage of the free beer. I can’t imagine the mixed flavours of ale and porter mixed with brick dust, mud, horse manure, drowned people and whatever else was on the streets that day made for a satisfying brew, but then some people will drink anything. The area apparently retained a beery smell for some weeks afterwards.

Relatives of the deceased attempted to recoup some of their losses by charging people to see their drowned loved ones. This caused a somewhat unexpected addendum to the disaster, when the floor of an overcrowded house collapsed, dropping the gawkers into a still-flooded cellar.

The whole incident was ruled to be an Act of God, with nobody found at fault (I reiterate – 29 steel hoops reinforcing the tank). The Horse Shoe Brewery was in serious danger of bankruptcy, but fortunately for them was refunded the duty they had paid on the stored beer by court order.

The brewery was rebuilt and stayed there until 1922. It is now the site of the Dominion Theatre. We will rock you, indeed.

The Gates – Cripplegate

In the last entry, I talked a bit about the city walls, and I mentioned the gates. I was going to write an entry about all of them, but then I thought that would be cruel. So I’m going to do them one at a time. First up – Cripplegate! Woo!

My reason for starting with this one is that I just happen to have some photos of the area now, thanks to, yes, that long walk last week. The building you see here is Roman House, which according to the blue plaque on the side was built on the site of Cripplegate. Let’s see what it looked like in 1650, shall we?

Ah, that’s more like it. As you can see, the gates were actually rather substantial buildings. This one lasted until 1760.

There’s some debate over what the name “Cripplegate” actually means. It’s not helped by the fact that the spelling of the name has varied over the centuries since the gate first showed up in approximately 120AD. It’s variously recorded as “Cripelesgate,” “Cripelesgata,” “Crepelesgate,” “Crepulgate” and “Creplegate.” 

The obvious suggestion is that the name has something to do with the disabled. This would appear to be backed up by the existence of the church, St-Giles-without-Cripplegate. St Giles is the patron saint of the disabled. However, this church didn’t appear until the 11th century. The building currently standing is of later Norman construction, one of the few substantial buildings to survive the Blitz that levelled the area and one of the last medieval City churches. It looks strangely out of place, located as it is by the Barbican centre and near terrible buildings like Roman House.

So, if the name doesn’t come from St Giles and his associates, where the heck does it come from? A. D. Mills, in the Dictionary of London Place Names, suggests the Old English “crypel-geat,” which means “low gate”. That is to say, “low” in the sense of “not much headroom”, not geographically low. Unlike Highgate. Which isn’t actually one of the city gates. Now I’m just confusing myself.