On Wednesday 10 April, the London Pubs Group visited five former Truman’s pubs in the Spitalfields and Whitechapel areas. The evening started in the Golden Heart, a Grade II-listed building with two stars on CAMRA’s inventory of pubs of outstanding national historic interest. This magnificent showpiece ‘improved’ pub was rebuilt in 1936 by the company’s in-house architect A E Sewell. It has a very fine, three-sided neo-Georgian frontage of brick and Portland stone. The entrance on Hanbury Street leads to the elegant saloon bar which, according to drawings, was formerly subdivided with a lounge/dining room at the rear. The windows have attractive blue and yellow stained glass and fixed bench seating is still extant. Next to the saloon was the private bar; this has been absorbed into the public bar and is accessed from Commercial Street. At the back there was once a tap and dining room. The walls in both remaining bars have fielded panelling to picture rail height, except in the rear, where there’s a panelled dado. Three brick fireplaces remain; above the one in the former private bar is a fine built-in Truman’s mirror. There is plenty of original fixed bench seating here also. There’s a central servery, though it appears that the bar-backs on each side incorporate new work. None of this is at all showy and it displays one of the two main facets of interwar pub-building: the careful, restrained Georgian one as opposed to ‘Brewers’ Tudor’. The real ale offer here is Timothy Taylor Landlord.
In complete contrast is the Ten Bells. This pub is also Grade II-listed and has one star on CAMRA’s Inventory. This four-storey corner pub stands opposite the magnificent Christ Church and Spitalfields Market. The interior has been gutted to make a smart bar but the pub was included for its wall tiling dating from around 1900. On the left, just inside what would have been an entrance corridor, is a tiled mural entitled ‘Spitalfields in ye Olden Time – Visiting a Weaver’s Shop’. Here we have a prosperous looking lady and gent surrounded by deferential locals, inspecting a piece of cloth. The mural is signed ‘W B Simpson & Sons. 100. S. Martins Lane. LONDON’. Simpson’s were responsible for a great many tiling schemes in pubs a century or so ago. Otherwise there are large tiled panels with swirling blue and white Arabesque decoration. The pub had an unfortunate period in the 1980s when it went by the name ‘Jack the Ripper’ but it reverted to its original name after a campaign from women’s safety groups. Fullers London Pride and Timothy Taylor Landlord are usually available.
Moving on to the Culpeper, originally the Princess Alice, and then the City Darts, this two floor pub has been totally modernised with contemporary décor. Happily, its brick and tiled Truman’s exterior is still very much in evidence. The ales include Big Hand Brewery Juicy Pale, Five Points Best, Purity Mad Goose and Pure UBU.
Our penultimate port of call was the Princess of Prussia. As with the Culpeper, this is neither listed nor on CAMRA’s Inventory. It is however a handsome public house, built around 1880 and featuring particularly distinctive glazed tile decoration, much of which was revealed recently following the removal of later signboards. It is one of the many former Truman’s public houses in the borough of Tower Hamlets. The whole frontage effectively acts as an advertisement for the products of Truman’s Brewery. ‘TRUMANS STOUT’, ‘MILD ALES’ and ‘PORTER’ are advertised above the door and bay window with ‘BURTON BREWED PALE & OLD ALES’ above the first-floor windows. The full name of the company ‘TRUMAN HANBURY & BUXTON’ is above the second floor windows with the name of the pub above the attic window. The ground floor features a large canted bay with bright green tiles beneath the window. Green tiles are also used around all the upper floor windows and also to form the decorative details around the side and top of the dormer window. The pub is named after Victoria, the Princess Royal, who was the eldest child of Queen Victoria. Princess Victoria married Prince Frederick of Prussia (later Kaiser Frederick III of Germany) in 1858 and was the mother of ‘Kaiser Bill’ Wilhelm II. The usual Shepherd Neame range of Master Brew, Spitfire, and Whitstable Bay is sold here.
The tour concluded in the Good Samaritan. This has a great Truman’s exterior, complete with eagle, swags and cornucopia in stone, although the interior has been completely opened out and modernised. A small amount of original chevroned coloured window glass remains. Built in 1937, it was renamed ‘Good Sams’ from 1984 until 1995. This is a traditional pub well used by staff (and even patients) from the Royal London Hospital next door. Belhaven Deuchars IPA, Fullers London Pride and Sharp’s Doom Bar are served here.
It was encouraging to see how busy the pubs were on the night suggesting that, in E1, maybe Wednesday is now the new Friday?
Jane Jephcote and Kim Rennie