London Stories

This is quite possibly one of the hardest pubs in London to find. It's the "Ye Old Mitre" on Ely Court off Hatton Garden, but the entrance to the alley is tiny and hard to spot unless you know where it is. The pub here is very old indeed, originally built in 1546 for the servants of the Bishop of Ely who owned the whole area it was later leased to Sir Christopher Hatton who famously danced with Queen Elizabeth (and some say did a lot more with her!) around a cherry tree in the forecourt of the pub. 

The photo on the left is an old one and clearly shows the Bishop's Mitre augmenting the front of the pub, it's a reference to the original owner and is still there. I took the picture on the right back in 2019 and the Mitre is the blue object just to the right of the hanging lamp, it's obscured by foliage but can just be made out. I've visited this pub a couple of times now, it's a great place to take foreign visitors and it's about as classic old-world pub as you can get, wooden panels everywhere, tiny crooked corridors and winding stairs, it's worth visiting the bar upstairs as it's not obvious and often empty, a London classic.