Trail:

Soho: A Pub Crawl

Click to enlarge
London, Dog and Duck
Click to enlarge
London, Soho pub map

Pubs tend to be taken for granted. Everyone can recognize one, and few types of building - and there are said to be 60,000 in England - are more easily accessible. The following tour covers an area of central London especially rich in them, showing many of the trends that have marked pub architecture since late GeorgianGlossary Term times. Changes in wider architectural taste have left their mark, as well as attempts by the trade to suggest wholesomeness, prosperity, or old-fashioned English virtues: let no-one believe that marketing or 'theming' pubs is anything new. Soho is also special in that relatively few pubs have succumbed to the more recent fashion for branded pub chains or bars.

The crawl can be completed in less than an hour, if you do not stopGlossary Term for a drink. Print out the map and take it with you and you should not get lost.

Glossary

Georgian

The architecture of the British Isles in the reigns of George I, II, III and IV, i.e. 1714-1830, in which the classical style and classical proportions became the norm for both major and minor buildings.

Stop

Plain or decorated terminal to mouldings or chamfers at the end of hoodmoulds and labels (label stop), or stringcourses. A headstop is carved with a head.