The Blackfriar to Ye Old Mitre

Posted on 2015/11/15 10:04:27 (November 2015).

[Tuesday 10th November 2015]
I had originally booked this evening off from parenting duties so I could go on something of a pilgrimage, out of London, to the Bell at Aldworth. I was planning to go with Simon, but as it turned out he was ill this week, so we rescheduled for next week.

During the day it became apparent that the usual suspects (Andrew and Jim) at work were keen to go out for a pint or two. So instead of the long trek out to the wilds of Berkshire, I took them on a tour of some old favourites in central London, starting at the Blackfriar, by way of Fleet Street (the Crown and Sugar Loaf, the Old Bell, Ye Old Cheshire Cheese). Ricardo joined us briefly at the Old Bell, and therefore the usual surreal conversations ensued ("What's the opposite of a beard of bees?", etc). As Christmas looms, we had recently been discussing decidedly (a different adjective was employed) quaint venues for pre-Christmas drinks. Last year this had taken us to Hampstead, a hard act to follow in quaint terms. To this end I determined to include Ye Old Cheshire Cheese on tonight's itinerary, which, despite being on the tourist trail, in the original bar by the entrance, complete with an open fire and sawdust on the floor, is, in my opinion, pretty bloody quaint. Not sure the chaps were that impressed though.

Our actual "official" pre-Christmas really-very-quaint outing looks set to be headed for Oxford, or thereabouts, but recent discussion of the thirst for quaintness was part of what reminded me of the Bell at Aldworth.

The rest of them seemed to have had enough after Ye Old Cheshire Cheese, by which time it was only just gone 9 o' clock. It seemed a waste to me to just go home at that point, so I headed on from there to the possibly even quainter Ye Old Mitre - which was delightfully quiet by that time on a Tuesday evening in the first half of November. And, from there, a final nightcap at the Whisky Society, before, just for fun, getting a proper train rather than the tube back home from Farringdon.

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