Seven Stars

Posted on 2010/09/17 22:46:26 (September 2010).

[Sunday 22nd August 2010]
Chie went off to see a friend in the afternoon, so I went on a pilgrimage to the Seven Stars, having yesterday determined it was the oldest pub in London. On the off chance I let my friend Al know I was heading there, and as a pleasing bit of serendipity it turned out he had been doing a chocolate making course (?!) just around the corner, so along with girlfriend Charlotte he joined me for a drink there.

I ended up staying quite a while, wallowing in the history of the place, which was all the more satisfying for having spent all that time yesterday researching it (including finding all the landlords and landladies in the census returns), and particularly as it felt like I'd uncovered something that wasn't widely known.

Even without it's historical credentials, the Seven Stars is a great pub - I get the impression it attracts a lot of regulars (not common for this part of London), even on the weekends - so it's not just the typical nearest-pub-to-the-office-for-an-after-work-pint sort of place. Plus the landlady, Roxy Beaujolais, is something of a celebrity in her own right - she is partly credited for the rise in quality of pub food across the country in the last few decades - but reassuringly her own pub is still very much a pub, not a restaurant in disguise (although I am led to believe the food is very well regarded too). It's a genuine free house, sadly something of a dying breed in London. How many pubs in London are there where you actually know who the landlord / landlady is? I can only think of a handful. A lot of the pubs I go to don't seem to have the same staff two visits in a row. There's something immensely comforting about knowing when you go to a particular pub, that you'll be greeted by a particular face. That's what great pubs should be - an expression of the landlord's character. Unfortunately, most pubs these days are just a function of some corporate operational parameters.

Long live the Seven Stars.

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