Review

Genuine, authentic and legitimate are three words that can be used to describe Ye Olde Mitre, and the same three words are scarcely and tenuously used in depicting most other pubs of this age. Ye Olde Mitre is a small, dark and cosy Elizabethan alehouse that first opened its door to the boozing multitude in 1546. Its claim to be the oldest pub in London is questionable due to it technically being in a part of Cambridgeshire. Demolished and quickly rebuilt in 1772 on land owned by the Bishops of Ely, Cambridgeshire, the pub was originally built to intoxicate the servants at the Bishop's nearby London home.

A further questionable claim of the pub is that it was Dr Johnson's local. We're all aware that Dr Johnson lived nearby, but his love of pubs and beer surely meant he had more than one local.

Beware of head and body injuries in Ye Olde Mitre, as the ceilings are low and the rooms are small, dark and crammed with furniture and people. The furniture will be familiar to anybody who's been in a pub of this vintage before: harsh wooden upright seats that resemble electric chairs and solid wooden tables that look as through they were used to lay-out dead bodies in the local mortuary. A sign requests that furniture is not moved away from the authentic wood-panelled walls, and consequently there are chairs everywhere, most of which are accompanied by a mini-table like a child's desk.

Finding Ye Olde Mitre can be a challenge because it's located mid-way along an alleyway that connects Hatton Garden with Ely Place, the ends of which are covered and accessible via a doorway between two buildings. Look for the Bishop's Mitre picture above a doorway between two jewellers on Hatton Garden. Ye Olde Mitre seems to be a bastion of official, and unofficial, pub-walks, as the pub is quiet one minute and heaving the next when hordes of walkers with guidebooks swarm in.

The central bar is split between the two rooms and Ye Olde Mitre's snug is 'Ye Closet': a coffin-sized cubby-hole off the back room that is large enough for a single table and four very close friends. The overall effect of the pub is wonderful, but the tatty plates, as seen in every other mock-Elizabethan pub, lose credibility.

The women's toilets are upstairs in the Bishop's Room and the men's toilets are outside in the yard. It would be too temping to have the men's toilets in the Bishop's Room for fear of jokes about bashing it! The only hand-basin in the Men's is in the cubicle so be weary of pissing on your hands if somebody's taking a dump.

Probably desperately needed due to the dark interior, the backroom of the pub has a modern skylight (modern in the scheme of things); only the front of the pub has windows, of the medieval leaded type. The lampshades in the pub are 3D; 3D, that is, in an Elizabethan sense. The shades contain an ancient street scene with 'real' light shining from the windows, a novelty effect created by cutting a hole in the shade to represent the glass.

Review by mr_psm