Fleet Street · the City of London
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
Rebuilt the year after the Great Fire
- Address145 Fleet Street, EC4A 2BU
- Phone020 7353 6170
- Websiteye-olde-cheshire-cheese.co.uk
- OwnershipPart of Samuel Smith's
About Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
One of the City's oldest pubs, on a site licensed since 1538 and rebuilt around 1667; its cellars are thought to be even older.
A pub has occupied this Fleet Street site since 1538, and the current building went up around 1667, the year after the Great Fire — one of the first to be rebuilt. Its warren of cellars is believed to sit on the vaults of a 13th-century Carmelite monastery. Dickens and Mark Twain are both said to have been regulars, and for decades the pub's best-known resident was Polly, an African grey parrot whose death in 1926 was reported by newspapers around the world. It's on CAMRA's National Inventory of historic pub interiors.
On tap
Samuel Smith's own beers, served the traditional way — no lager taps, no music.
Food
Hearty British food — pies, roasts — in a warren of small dining rooms.
More pubs in Fleet Street
- The Old Bank of EnglandA real Bank of England branch, gold vaults and all
- The Punch TavernNamed after the magazine, by its own staff
See all the City of London pubs and the map · All 12 boroughs