Kettles and Pans say St Anne’s (and St Agnes)

One of the things that’s becoming obvious as we delve deeper and deeper into the verses of the Oranges and Lemons rhyme is the fact that all the church locations are based around the square mile of the City of London and it’s becoming increasingly more and more difficult to find new pubs to visit and not to make the various evening-outs overlap each other.

This week’s mission had just that sort of problem when the church revealed itself to be that of St Anne’s and St Agnes (poor old St Agnes doesn’t get a mention in the rhyme) which is on Gresham Street, just slightly further on down the road of where we finished the evening out for St Giles without Cripplegate. Although usually you only have to look left and right to fall over the nearest pub in London, this part of the city around Barbican isn’t at all well provided for in terms of pub numbers and it was quite a stretch to gather together some venues for the evening.

The City Tavern before it's demise.

What also didn’t help the mission was that one likely candidate; the City Tavern on Trump Street has now been demolished to make way for another huge office block that probably no-one will ever use. Luckily for the record-keeping of this blog, Google Maps hasn’t quite caught up to modern day events and still has images of the pub if you try to walk around the area using Street View. Perhaps as a Greene King house it might have never had the most interesting of beers on offer but it certainly did a nice line in window boxes.

Anyway on to the pubs that were still standing………

No1 Poultry - Loving the weirdy beardy and the bloke with the afro who have photo-bombed me.

We began the night, in a change to the normal run of events by meeting in the first pub rather than doing our normal herding cats waiting around in the office or waiting for the girls to finish their 2-for-1 cocktails in the Slug & Lettuce. The first pub on this occasion was The Green Man, a Wetherspoon’s basement pub located in the No 1 Poultry Building next to Bank tube station. This was a pub I’d visited before in the company of Aussie Pete (Remember him? Used to eat on his own? Funny accent?) when we were charging around getting the necessary Cask Marque scans needed for one of the Cask Ale Week’s special T-Shirts.

(L-R - James, James-James, James-James-James.)

The first arrivals were yours truly accompanied as usual by several side kicks in the forms of Spikey Haired Ed, James James, New Guy Micky and new converts to the tour Lisa and Reece. We were also joined by a second James, or maybe that should be a third James, who had finally after many promises of joining us made it out onto one of the expeditions. The evening was a damp and drizzly one and the 10 minute walk was made all the more challenging by the dawdling tourists and their dawdling umbrellas. Talking of umbrellas, in order to protect my new hair-do I’d picked up a bright blue stripped monstrosity of a brolly from the office and much to the jealousy of Ed remained bone dry all the way to the pub whereas he seems to take every drop of rain that might damage his perfect bonce as a personal insult..
First beer of the night was Darkest Devon from Exe Valley or at least it was for me, as the others went for continental lagers or vodka fun drinks. The pub is split over two floors and with the upstairs heaving at the gunwales we had to make do with a standing table at the bottom of the stairs As we waiting for everyone else to turn up.

There's a better head on this beer than on the person in the photo - oooo, been waiting to deliver that one for weeks!

We were swiftly joined by Buddy Rob just in time for the second round which in my case was something with “Gold” in the title but due to the reason I couldn’t get a mobile signal in the basement I failed to check into Untappd and therefore don’t have a clear record what it was.

A Comb-Under?

Also in my defence though, I was being put off by the chap stood next to me at the bar as I was placing the order. It’s to the credit of the collective British personality that usually even in the midst of the unruly scrum at the bar we still instinctively know who should be served before who. Now this chap standing to my left wasn’t trying to push ahead in fact his “problem” was the exact opposite in that he was being so meek and mild I was almost embarrassed for him as bar-person after bar-person over looked his proffered empty glass and went on to server someone else. That said it may have been down to one of the weirdest haircuts ever. You’ve all heard of the comb-over, which in my experience is usually centred on the front of the head. Well this chap had a comb-over but it was combed over the back of his head making for this mess of a “do”. Ah well, I hope his pint of “something Gold” went down well which is what I heard him finally order when someone had eventually seen him.

Mid-way through the second round we were joined by tonight’s eye candy in the form of Pissed-Up Phil, Natasha, Gemma and Lucie. Luckily for them it was only vodka fun drinks and halves of cider that needed to be downed before we left for the next place. But mind you, I think Phil still got in two pints in that time…..
The next place was the fabulously named The Old Doctor Butler’s Head, a back alley, wood-timber building currently owned by Shepherd Neame.  Doctor William Butler was the court physician to James I and was described as an eccentric, a drunkard and the greatest physician of his time. So apart from any medical qualifications this was a pub we should feel right at home in.

Unfortunately what we did feel in this pub was extremely crushed as it was absolutely rammed with the usual assortment of besuited city types. Somehow I made it to a place at the bar but that wasn’t enough to see me served before Gemma as obviously the barman had fallen in love with her perfect teeth and dazzling smile. We took the drinks outside where it was still spitting and drizzling and the big blue brolly came into its own as we nearly all managed to get under it and remained the right side of wet.

Wouldn't bother Gemma - hair looks a mess anyway.

No doubt this is a historical and interesting pub but the combination of size of the crowd, the arrogance of the suits and the wetness of the rain led us to scurry off pretty sharpish. But that wasn’t before Gemma had accosted two innocent chaps and accused them of being Italian.
The route now led us along Gresham Street and past the Guildhall and the Red Herring at the bottom of Wood Street which we visited as part of St Giles without Cripplegate, but this time we continued to Noble Street and the church for the evening.

Toilets just around the corner.

St Anne’s and St Agnes is another one of Christopher Wren’s rebuildings after the Great Fire of London. It’s built in the shape of a Greek Cross which apparently is quite rare in terms of church architecture and John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress, was a parishioner here once but as you can probably tell I was struggling for anything else interesting to say about the place. I think the tourists were quite glad of that though as the sound of the rains was making everyone need a toilet.

Note - The barmaid was not a Heavenly Blonde, she was actually a bit of a mardy cow.

Luckily then for everyone’s bladders that the final pub was just around the corner in St Martin’s Le-Grand, a Taylor Walker place called the Lord Raglan. Luckily this place was large enough to cope with the amount of people in there so it was relief from both crowds and rain, and relief for the bladders as well. The beer chosen was the delightfully named Heavenly Blonde from Oldershaw Brewery and perhaps it was so obviously named after Mazars’s very own Gelfling, Natasha, both she and Gemma joined me in a pint of the good stuff. Well I say joined, I had 2 and ½ pints whilst they grimaced and moaned about the ¼ pint they managed to keep down.

(L-R Heavenly Blonde, Heavenly Moustache, Devil Woman)

And then before you could say “time Gentlemen please” the night was over as the majority of the male contingent ran off the rest of the kitty to McDonalds and Phil and I had to console ourselves with a pizza in the company of the Three Degrees. But there was still time for a final beer, a bottle of Greens Gluten Free Pilsner, which was only chosen because it was the only thing I’d never had from the menu before.
So it was back to Liverpool Street for Natasha and Gemma, off jogging somewhere in the night for Lucie in her day-glo trainers and me to save Phil from falling on the tracks at Barbican. So just a normal night
really………….

Brickbats and Tiles say St Giles without Cripplegate

Look, anyone can make a mistake, even someone as awesome as the BGC and when you’re dealing with ancient folk tales and a city as big as London it’s no wonder that the odd error creeps in from time to time.

It would seem that the last excursion to St Giles in the Fields was actually a visit to the “wrong” St Giles. The Oranges and Lemons rhyme features churches from the City of London and other parts of the East End and as faithful readers will do doubt have been screaming at their screens, St Giles in the Fields is in the heartland of the West End.

The “right” St Giles, it turns out, is St Giles without Cripplegate, located in the heartland of the City of London in the middle of the Barbican Centre. This is a much much older church and apparently the “Brickbats and Tiles” reference refers to the materials used by nearby builders and if you’re wondering about the strange word of Cripplegate it actually refers to a Saxon word, Cruplegate, meaning a tunnel or covered way. That said, St Giles is the patron saint of cripples, beggars and blacksmiths which I’m sure could be made into a joke: There were these three blokes in a bar, one of them, a blacksmith turned to the other two………..

It was a bit of a cobbled together tour that eventually got together in the first pub, Rack & Tenter in Tenter Square. The IT department had managed to put in a woeful turn out with only Spikey Haired Ed and James James eventually being persuaded to come out. Payroll had put in a much better performance with the regulars of Gemma, George, Tasha, Lucie and Isabelle being joined by new regulars of Lisa and Young Phil and a fresh face on the tour of Kevin.

A box full of tit-heads.

The journey to the first pub turned out to be easy as we timed our entry into the tube perfectly and met a Circle Line train with only a minute’s wait and with the first pub literally just round the corner from Moorgate Tube Station the only problem we suffered was having to wait until 6pm for Ed to finally finish work and herd the rest of the cats together, some of whom had left early for food (James James & Lisa for a romantic McDonalds) and some who got so tired of waiting for Ed had sneaked off for pre-tour cocktails.

The afterglow of McDonalds.

The area around Moorgate is to be quite frank, a bloody mess at the moment. There’s another massive bit of the Crossrail works which seems to have dug up every other road and quite a large part of this area resembles a 1970’s concrete shopping precinct with all the glamour of The Bill’s infamous Cockcroft Estate. The Rack and Tenter had all the charm and presence of a pebble-dashed council house and is nothing more than a square box-like drinking hole for City tit-heads in suits. It should be much more, it’s a Marston’s pub and had they put any effort into it like Fuller’s would have done it might have been better. The only redeeming feature was the very pretty tattooed barmaid and the free drink vouchers that we’d all downloaded before visiting. I had an acceptable pint of Marston’s EPA but the others had to make do with the limitations of the voucher which meant pints of fizzy Foster’s for Ed, James James and Phil and glasses of the house red or the house white for the lovely ladies.

Even though I would avoid the place like the plague under other circumstances, it had managed to attract a huge crowd of the aforementioned City tit-head in suits and it was a fight to get to the bar. Our ordering wasn’t helped by the vouchers as each individual voucher number had to be imputed into the till and we can only be glad the aforementioned pretty tattooed barmaid had the patience to do it all with a smile and a wink.
We took our drinks outside to escape the scrum and apart from discovering the outdoor heater could be turned on and off by a switch (a la The Ship in Talbot Court) I think the best thing than can be say is that at least we didn’t have to pay.

Photo not taken on the night......obviously.

Moving on, we took the 5 minute stroll along the beautiful and sculptured concrete jungle that appeared to be a multi-storey car park but in fact hides the Salters’ Institute and Salters’ Hall until we hit the corner of Fore Street and Wood Street. There tucked in the corner is another appalling looking pub called Wood Street Bar & Restaurant and having taken note of the signs outside which instructed people that “Drinking is not allowed outside the public house. Drinkers must stay inside” I was fully expecting the worst.
Thankfully the interior of the pub, lots of etched glass and dark wood was actually really really pleasant. Firstly the place was at the exactly right level of busy-ness, with a smattering of other drinkers but still with plenty of room at the bar and spare seats. This all was made even more so by the warm welcome of the barmaid and barman who were delighted to pour off a pint of Shepherd Neame’s Whitstable Bay Pale Ale.
Because we had vouchered in the first pub we didn’t bother with a whip on this tour so it took slightly longer until we were all “avec les drinks” and installed in a very cosy corner in the pub. Quite how the conversation got round to the next subject is anyone’s guess but at some point someone (I bet it was Ed) announced that we were all going to end up in a “Titty Bar” (presumably not one full of City Tit-Heads in suits?) to which three of the ladies performed strange actions in Pavlov’s Dog type fashion. George’s hand leapt into the air, either volunteering to go to said place or announcing that she knew of where one was, Gemma did some extraordinary hip grinding and thrusting but perhaps the best reaction of Lisa’s screeched exclamation that “why do I wanna go to a titty bar. I wanna go to a penis bar!” Say it in broad TOWIE tones and you’ll get a feel for this special moment.

Just before the Penis Bar comment. Looks like butter wouldn't melt........

Time to leave.

Church. Pavement. Not night.......obviously.

Just around the corner of the pub, you enter the Barbican Centre (I need to investigate this area further) and the impressive stone structure of St Giles Cripplegate. The church is, as already stated, old, much older than any we’ve visited so far being built on a Saxon church which turned into a Norman one before having various bits and bobs added on over the years. It was severely damaged during the war and needed to be much repaired and renovated and now sits rather incongruously in the middle of a paved pedestrian area which I’m not sure does it any favours.

As you would expect with such an old church there’s a whole host of interesting facts to regale about such a place but the three that I focussed in on were that John Milton (he who had his daughter christened at St Giles in the Fields) was buried here in 1674, Oliver Cromwell was married here in 1620 and Rick Wakeman recorded his track “Jane Seymour” here. Enough history, let’s have another drink.

It was but a 5 minute walk down Wood Street and underneath the overhead complext straddling City Wall before continuing down Wood Street  and walking past the City of London Police Headquaters and the solitary standing spire of St Alban’s. The next pub was The Cape, a chain of Stonegate pubs all bearing the same name that are dotted around London. This one wasn’t packed but looked to have been in the same state as the Rack and Tenter was an hour or so ago. The pub had been  Cask Marque accredited up until the end of October last year but had either lost it’s rights to claim this honour (even though the certificate and door stickers where much in evidence) or had failed to renew. Either way the scan wasn’t working.

Should be publically demoted.

Pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord secured we retired to a isolated and unattended corner where although there was a huge curved banquette that could have seated us all we chose to stand in a uneven huddle.
Drinks drank it was also an uneven huddle which paused for a photo by the handily parked Police Horse Wagon, much to the disgust of the passing cabby, and then we needed to just round the corner to reach the next place, The Red Herring located at the end of Wood Street and the junction with Gresham Street.

Book them Dano.......

The Red Herring is a smart Fuller’s house doing everything Fuller’s seems to be able to do remarkably well with its City pubs. That said this one wasn’t Cask Marque accredited which is something or a rarity as most of their pubs are. But to make up for the lack of certificate we’d all got vouchers again, these one being a little more generous than the ones for the Rack and Tenter, allowing us to choose any drink up to the value of £5. I choose a pint of Gold by Butcombe Brewery and left the others to choose their vodka based fun drinks to their heart’s content. Naughty Lucie though, had once again done the trick of bringing her glass of wine from the previous pub into this one……just can’t trust the French.

Ed prepares to exchange his voucher.

Unfortunately as sometimes seems to happen, the evening slightly fizzled out and after some heartfelt rantings about work and a replay of “snog, marry, push off a cliff” we all disappeared our separate ways. Talking of “snog, marry, push off a cliff” though, the tour may end up being postponed for some weeks as Gemma and George are to go off gallivanting half way around the world to meet former tourist and former “marry” candidate lovely Nicole. So perhaps we should end not with the tale of my lonely tube journey back to the last train of the night out of Paddington but wish them Bon Voyage and ask them to drink a Croucher Pale Ale for me.