The Tipperary pub in Fleet Street, London, has reopened after four years of closure, excellent news, since it’s one of the most attractive little pubs in the City. Planning permission was actually granted in April 2020 for its conversion into office use, but one of the very few benefits of the Covid pandemic was that working from home reduced demand for office space, and that scheme was dropped last year.
The re-opening is connected with plans for the building next door, 65 Fleet Street, built in 1989, empty since 2019, which a property development company called Dominus wants to turn into “high-quality, professionally managed student accommodation”. Dominus also now owns, or controls, the Tipperary, and is behind its reopening, evidently feeling, doubtless correctly, that student accommodation is greatly enhanced if there is a pub next door …
Meanwhile the history of the pub, which is, as I pointed out six years ago, wildly inaccurate in every book and article that mentions the Tipperary, has become even more muddied. The Tipperary is at 66 Fleet Street, and everybody agrees this was originally the address of a pub called the Boar’s Head, rebuilt after the Great Fire of London. Except it turns out not everybody does agree, and the argument has been made that the original Boar‘s Head at number 66 was pulled down in the 1840s, its site is occupied by the modern number 65, the licence for the Bull’s Head was shifted next door to number 67, which was renumbered 66, and a new number 67 was built on previously empty land the corner of Fleet Street and what was then Water Lane and is today Whitefriars Street. Under this narrative, the Tipperary has a much less substantial claim to be descended from the 15th century Boar’s Head, since it sits, supposedly, next door to the original Boar’s Head site.
But before we get to the evidence that has been put forward for that claim, let’s just give another bokk on the head to the received story of the Tipperary, taking as typical the version of its history printed in Johnny Homer’s City of London Pubs, published in 2016:
“The famous Dublin brewery S. G. Mooney acquired the Boar’s Head in Fleet Street around 1700 …”
There was no Dublin brewery called S. G. Mooney. The Boar’s Head was acquired by a Dublin pub company called J. G. Mooney & Co. in 1896.
“[it was] the first Irish pub outside Ireland …”
Total nonsense. It wasn’t even the first pub Mooney’s owned outside Ireland.
“The earliest records of the Boar’s Head date from 1605 …”
“Le borys head”, abutting south on the stone wall of the house of the Carmelite Friars in “Fletestrete”, was part of a grant in 1441/42 by John Stafford, Lord Chancellor to Henry VI, Bishop of Bath and Wells at the time (and later Archbishop of Canterbury), to the Carmelites, or white friars, who gave their name to Whitefriars Street (so called for the long white mantlethey wore over their brown habits when out and about, as opposed to the black friars, the Dominicans, who wore a black one, and the grey friars …). The grant also included the Bolt-in-Tun inn at what was later 64 Fleet Street. Stafford lived at one point in a now vanished street called Elden Lane, near St Bride’s church and off Fleet Street.
“It was one of the few buildings in this part of the City to escape the ravages of the Great Fire of 1666 …”
No it didn’t. The fire destroyed buildings along Fleet Street as far as Fetter Lane, around 160 yards west of the Boar’s Head, and the Boar’s Head was one of those burnt down.
“The Boar’s Head became the Tipperary in 1919 …”
No it didn’t. It was called “Mooney’s Irish House” from 1896 to 1967. Only in 1967 did it become the Tipperary.
“The change of name was inspired by Fleet Street printers returning from the First World War, and a famous old song that had become popular with the troops …”
Wrong again. Any Fleet Street printers who had returned from the First World War would have retired by 1967.
So much for that. But what of the claim that the Tipperary stands on the site of the Boar’s Head, and therefore has a history going back at least 580-plus years? Here I put myself in the hands of a man called Bren Calver, who aggregated many hours of research on the stretch of Fleet Street between Water Lane/Whitefriars Street and Bouverie Street, in particular studying contemporary illustrations, and who is convinced that the Tipperary occupies what was originally 67 Fleet Street, not the post-Great Fire 66 Fleet Street that was home to the Boar’s Head, which Calver believes was demolished around 180 years ago.
This is about to get complicated, so hang on to your hat. But much of the relevant history of the site hinges on the building activities of a man named William Edward Hickson, the wealthy son of a boot and shoe manufacturer based in Smithfield, London, born 1803. Around 1841 Hickson bought 67 Fleet Street with the intention of demolishing it and erecting a “first-class” new building stretching down Water Lane. It turned out that number 67 had no sewer, which cost him £100 – around £11,000 in today’s money – to put right, and annoyingly, as Hickson later complained, the sewer from number 66, instead of draining into the main Fleet Street sewer, ran under the basement of number 67 into a cesspit in Water Lane.
Bren Calver’s contention is that to avoid trying to build over the cesspits in Water Lane, which would have meant unstable foundations, Hickson left number 67 in place and erected his new building, Dunstan House, alongside it. This also, supposedly, removed any problems over party walls.
What happened next, Calver says, is that numbers 65 and 66 were demolished, with a rebuilt number 65 taking over the footprint of number 66 as well, “old” number 67 became “new” number 66, taking on the name and licence of the Boar’s Head, and Hickson’s new building, Dunstan House, became “new” number 67.
For evidence he puts up drawings of the corner of Fleet Street and Water Lane/Whitefriars Street in 1838, 1842 and 1847, which he says shows how number 66 disappeared and number 65 became wider.
He also queries the lack of a vault or cellar under the Boar’s Head when it was taken over by Mooney’s, so that the Irish company had to apply for permission for a vault to be excavated. The original vault to the Boar’s Head, Calver claims, was under old number 66/new number 65, and it was, he says, discovered in 1991 when building work was taking place on the site, lifted out in one piece and moved a short distance away to Magpie Alley, where it can still be seen.
Of that, more in a moment. First, let us tackle the evidence supposedly seen in the drawings. Calver presents a great story, as part of his argument that the blue plaque commemorating two great English clockmakers, Thomas Tompion (1638-1713) and George Graham (1673-1751), whose workplace was at 67 Fleet Street, otherwise the Dial and Three Crowns, is affixed to the wall of the wrong building, the supposed “new” number 67, Hickson’s Dunstan House, and not the “original” number 67, now, according to Calver, the Tipperary. I love a good contrarian, revisionist retelling of received history. But here I’m afraid I believe Calver is wrong: there was no demolition of the original Boar’s Head at number 66 Fleet Street, the Tipperary occupies exactly the same site as the one occupied by the Boar’s Head when John Stafford gave it to the Carmelites nearly six centuries ago, the current number 67 stands where Tompion and Graham’s Dial and Three Crowns stood, and the plaque is on the right building.
The most telling argument against Calver’s claims is the total lack of written evidence in support of his version of history. “Absence of evidence blah blah” – actually, absence of evidence IS evidence of absence, it’s just not conclusive proof of it. But I would have expected at least some mention somewhere of the demolition of number 66, and the transfer of the licence and name of the Boar’s Head to number 67. I have searched extensively, in books and newspaper, and not found any record of those events taking place. Hickson gave a lengthy account in 1844 of the problems he had over the sewer arrangements when he built Dunstan House. Nowhere did he say that he erected Dunstan House next door to the original number 67, nor did he say that number 66, which he complained had a sewer running underneath number 67, was demolished. One might have expected him to allude to these events. Similarly one would expect to find mention of a transfer of licence from old number 66 to new number 66, as for example, the transfer of the licence of the Boar’s Head from Ann Walbancke to Reuben Freeman in December 1846 was recorded.
Instead, references to the Boar’s Head confirm its continuation: The Antiquary, volume 46, 1910, for example, says that “A modern Boar’s Head at No. 66, Fleet Street, between Whitefriars Street and Bolt-in-Tun Yard, on the south side, still occupies the site of the Boar’s Head Tavern destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.”
As telling, however, if not more compelling, is that the various illustrations Calver puts up as evidence do not, in fact, show what he claims they do. He provides drawings from 1838 and 1847 that he claims show that “old” number 66/the Boar’s Head had disappeared by the latter date, that number 65 had been widened to take over the footprint of the Boar’s Head, and the Boar’s Head had shifted to “old” number 67.
But the drawing from 1847 shows the Boar’s Head still had the same double doors that it did in a painting from 1835 (which painting also shows that the Boar’s Head was selling Barclay Perkins’ Entire, or porter). The entrance to Boar’s Head Court is still between numbers 66 and 65, which it would not have been if 66 was by then occupying the site previously number 67. The 1847 drawing also shows a chimney stack on the boundary between 66 and 65: there is the same chimney stack in the drawing from 1838, but no chimney stack between 67 and 66.
As for the claim that the original vault belonging to the Boar’s Head was found under new number 65 in 1991, I fear Calver is confused. There WAS a vault found on the Whitefriars site, but in Britton’s Court, about 100 yards down Whitefriars Street, and thus nothing to do with the Boar’s Head. This vault, first discovered in 1867 and then forgotten about until 1895, was lifted out in one piece in 1991 to allow for redevelopment of the site, and moved to nearby Ashen Tree Court, Magpie Alley for public viewing. (According to Peter Tombs, the engineer on the project, the vault “basically went back to its original location.”) The vault was identified as probably 14th century, and it probably lay under the prior’s house.
So: sorry, Bren, you’re wrong.
Still, I had fun doing the research, and I uncovered some fascinating new stuff: that the White Friars had a brewery on their site, for example, on the southern edge, hard by what was then the banks of the Thames, which doubtless supplied the brewery with its water (the building of the Victoria Embankment means the site of the White Friars’ brewery is now some 120 yards from the modern river’s edge). Henry VIII “nationalised” the Carmelite priory in 1538 as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and in May 1541 a slice of the White Friars’ site, including “the Brew House”, was granted to Erasmus Crykener and his wife Agnes. Did that brewhouse supply the Boar’s Head with its ale? It seems very possible. The White Friars’ brewhouse, incidentally, was one of at least three religious breweries within less than half a mile: the Black Friars’ priory just the other side of the River Fleet had a brewhouse, and so did Old St Paul’s.
The sale of the brewery to the Crykeners was very probably far from an isolated event: doubtless many former monastic breweries around the country were sold off as Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell closed nearly 900 religious houses across England. Are there later commercial breweries with roots in former monastic brewhouses? I confess I don’t know of any. The former White Friars’ brewhouse is shown on a map drawn around 1635, so it survived for a century after the priory was dissolved, at least.
Another interesting – to me – little titbit was the discovery that it was William Hickson who got the name of Water Lane changed to Whitefriars Street, in October 1844. His complaint was that there were three Water Lanes in the City of London, all close to each other, and he claimed to the vestry of the parish of St Bride that if the Fleet Street Water Lane were renamed, “the value of property in the thoroughfare would much improve””
I also found a photograph from circa 1971, some three years after Mooney‘s had sold the Irish House and it had been renamed the Tipperary, showing the pub was then part of the Chef & Brewer chain. Chef & Brewer was founded by Ezekiel Levy and his brother-in-law, Harry Franks, in 1901. The business was sold to the then hotels and catering operation Grand Metropolitan in 1966. Grand Met, of course, later moved into brewing, acquiring first Truman’s and then Watney Mann. It seems to have sold the Tipperary at some time, and by the mid-1980s the pub was being run by Greene King. By coincidence, after several rounds of corporate pass-the-parcel, Greene King is the current owner of the Chef and Brewer brand …
“…actually, absence of evidence IS evidence of absence, it’s just not conclusive proof of it.”
Very good point and one that is all too often not appreciated (naming no names…)
Interesting post Martyn. Pub history unless it is late 19th century establishment onwards can be very muddled and confused.
Errrmmmm
‘The fire destroyed buildings along Fleet Street as far as Fetter Lane, around 160 years west of the Boar’s Head, and the Boar’s Head was one of those burnt down.’
Yards, or time travel as well? 🙂
Ooops – thank you, now corrected
Remarkable research, as to be expected
Dear Martyn,
I’m often misquoted deliberately for saying this or that by my skeptics but, the truth is I haven’t believed for a long time now that No’s 66, 65, or 64 during the 1830-1870 period were ever demolished, and have published articles to explain why so, here I would like to set the record strait.
Like Zythophile my research has taken twists and turns trying to establish the truth behind some very fundamental questions about this terrace of five properties, where there are some real anomalies in Status Quo accepted wisdom, and I have been much maligned and gagged by critics for daring to venture a logical opinion.
I firmly believe the following, and have produced a thesis for anyone who wishes to request a .Pdf copy at (bren.calver@aol.com) on my theory that the above buildings underwent (Subsumption) that was in those days permitted to improve accommodation for (Modernisation’) under London Metropolitan Buildings Regulations, Section XXV111 for older Lime Mortar built buildings, where internal walls could be re-situated “as long as outer walls remained, and occupation remained the same”. This explains why the very narrow (12ft wide) ‘Boars Head’ seen in the 1838 Tallis Street View suddenly disappears in the 1847 Tallis view without recorded demolition, a term not in common use until 1889 when a ‘Demolition Order’ was first reported in the Pall Mall Gazette. However, No’s 65 and 64 coincidentally also expand in width by 1/3rd and 2/3rds respectively to absorb this building, clearly seen when comparing the Tallis Street scene illustrations. This then put No’s 65 and 64 along side the old corner building No.67, Thomas Tompion’s Clock and Watch making premises in Water Lane. Incidentally there’s no demolition order for Tompion’s premises either, though much correspondence exists between neighbours concerning the proposed Vault and addition of a garret bathroom for No.66.
So you would think something as serious as a demolition would occupy much correspondence in appeal, because this was dangerous for buildings already 166 years old in this terrace.
Water Lane (was renamed White Friar Street in 1823) at the intersection of Fleet Street which had its throat expanded around 1842 from 9ft to 22ft, allowing a new corner building to be erected called ‘Dunstan House’ (abutted against the East side) of Tompion’s premises old No.67, to accommodate its first Tennant Charles Dickens for his newspaper called the ‘Daily News’. Further confusion to the real identity of these buildings came when this new corner build became No.67, followed by Tompion’s premises renumbered No.66, but already with better accommodation that only underwent a Stucco plaster facia lift for ‘Modernisation’. This was followed by physically ‘Modernised’ wider No’s 65,64 and later 63. In the 1870’s a new street numbering system was introduced to cause further building identity confusion especially with Tompion’s premises.
Moonies Breweries when they became new owners in 1896, who further added to the confusion by capitalising on the name ‘Boars Head’ by applying its name to Tompion’s premises that became a surrogate building for it. They also applied for Planning permission to excavate a ‘Vault’ (with vaulted ceiling) in 1896, as opposed to a Cellar with flat ceiling, the former that the ‘Boars Head’ was already recorded to have in the 1812 ‘Morning Chronicle?. Tompion’s premises never had a vault according to a sale inventory with the previous owner Robert Fincham. So this Vault has to be still there under No.65’s driveway, deep underground as they were, dislocated in consequence to building shunt and forgotten, just like the Medieval Vault found under the near by Old Priory now displayed in Magpie Alley, found at the rear of No 65 Fleet Street during redevelopment of the News of the World premises .
So, finally the only remaining building today is a authenticated as a real 17th century building by the City of Londons own 2016 survey report. This is No.66 which my theory shows is Tompion’s former premises No.67 on the corner of Water Lane..
Thanks Martyn for this opportunity of reply, your providing a great service to London Social History.
Bren Calver.
Martyn,
Forgot to say while you are ‘Moderating’ If you place a pair of draftsman dividers over the composite 1838 and 1847 Tallis illustrations and apply the 1/3 apportioning I show in my illustration sent recently, you will see my point, of the quite visual differences of proportions of Nos.65 and 64 and that the narrow medieval ‘Boars Head’ only 11ft wide according to the Goad Map legend, and street width 1/2 22ft that this building exactly fits. If adding my e-mail address offend’s then please leave it off as no offence meant or, as received, as just trying to help maybe interested readers, in fact leave all the invitation off to simplify matters.
Martin glad you enjoyed finding more brewery history regarding White Friars, though I don’t suppose they understood then Cholera was rife in water extracted from the Thames where most sewerage ended up.
Regarding the little Alley way you think makes my hypothesis incorrect. My latest comparison research between both the 1838 and 1847 Tallis street views not only shows the Narrow No.66 built over is Medieval footings and Vault after the ‘Great Fire’ has vanished by subsumption but, also building width’s following exactly my 1/3 apportioning theory fits exactly the missing width of the Boars Head therefore must be correct. You intelligently but wrong assume the continued existence of this little alleyway after subsumption happened must mean I am wrong but, have you considered these now modernised frontages would still need to include a re-situated alley way which is wider and now arched in the No.65 Cockerell frontage instead of the earlier square opening, for the 9 residential properties at the back in Boars Head Court to be accessed from Fleet Street?. These people couldn’t just be blocked off…
Finally you say I am mistaken about the Vault found under the rear of No .65 Fleet Street but, that is not a theory I have supported for a long time, because you are correct it belonged to the Priory further down, and due to misinformation in a previous press report this lead me to think it belonged to No.65. (All)my publication materials since only shows this as a typical Medieval Vault the Medieval Boars Head would have had, and I believe is still buried deep under todays No.65 driveway.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Bren Calver. 26/08/024
Martyn,
While you are moderating my e-mails, I have one other piece of information that you might like to consider taking into account the “Goad Insurance Map” the main definitive argument regarding measurements my critiques use which is (unsafe) considering this map does not take into account what happened between its true earlier date to 1842 .
If you look at this Map you will notice the ground plan is (faceted) which is an earlier design Sibley proposed. this is also included as a revised “small scrap view” drawing on the left side of a “Conveyance Deed I have for No.67”, (dated 1776), that shows in red a revised radius corner design which, Hickson’s architect Sibley had intended to use in 1841 for Dunstan House but, finally submitted with a radius corner instead (permitted under the 1817 Metropolitan Pavement Act), which was approved and built in 1842, which, you can see on P .10 of my thesis I recently sent to you as a copy, and is illustrated with artists G.Moore, and Sargent.
Returning to “Goad”, this business began (39 years later) in 1885 , a date which scrutinising with a magnifying glass it can be seen someone has pasted this date on the top right hand corner of this plan, long after Hickson had finished building Dunstan House in 1842.
Given that other buildings are named specifically on this Goad Map but not Boars Head which, is just represented by a generic PH , and, considering the scale on this map is: ( 1ft = 22ft )this indicates the Boars Head is only 11 ft wide exactly half the width of Water Lane/ White Friars St.) 22ft, and the “Conveyance Deed” says the same. So, todays No.67 at 16ft can’t can’t be the Boars Head and must be Tompion’s premises acting as a surogate building which comparing Tallis Street views is confirmed visually..
Finally, as you would think it inpolite if I criticised you very publicly for views you do not hold, considering my published Thesis, can I please ask you for fairness in the meanwhile that your comments be removed please, which are false and unfair.
Best Regards,
Bren Calver.
Martyn,
Please stop putting false words into my mouth whilst “Moderation” continues as this misleads the public regarding my Hypothesis which, it seems you are doing deliberately . After all, you have received updates long since to revise your blog.
To begin, when you say No.67 didn’t have a drain, I assume you mean “Dunstan House” until one was built to serve this building in September 1842, which, delayed Hickson’s build because drains (ground work) had to be laid first before building could commence, Hickson says this ,and that, after 3 months of haggling with (90) Drain Commissioners, finally permission was granted for a main drain in March 1842. This drain took 6 months to complete in September 1842. Then building commenced and was apparently completed by Christmas 1842.
This left only 3 months to build a 4 storey high rise, demolished old No.67, and handle all appeals. (Ridiculous!) as any builder today will tell you, and as Hickson said when the best seasons for building was over.
Far more likely he built his new Dunstan House along-side independently, as old No. 67 was built with Lime mortar. Old No.67 then acted as a surrogate building, for occupants of old No.66 to be decanted into, because it was a better building according to Robert Finchams sale inventory, which, is why Trade Directories could not differentiate a surrogate building when numbers were the same.
However, old No.66 (Boars Head) was gone by 1842, read the Sphere Article of 1921, and compare the 1838 and 1847 Tallis Street Scenes that.. both show IT GONE!!.
So, the Drain you refer to, as mentioned in W.E. Hicken’s Public Enquiry Statement 1843/44, traversed from old No.67 under his new buildings (Dunstan House) basement which, was a communal drain from the remaining buildings in this terrace.
I can prove this last statement, because, (Old No.67) was still standing in 1842 and 1843 (according to both Post Office, London, Trade Directories for those years). These Directories show Dixon, Henry Manifold Writer and Co. Thomas Palcer a print maker still occupying and trading at old No.67 whilst Dunstan House (was being built) in 1842 who, still resided there in 1843 then moved to 194 the Strand.
So, when Hickson’s new build received a new number (67), old number 67 became a surrogate building for No.66 Boars Head ,thus was numbered No.66. This exchange of buildings was easily done because, “Land Registry” didn’t come into existence until 1862, it, took another 35 years until the “Land Transfer Act” in 1897 made (registration compulsory).
By the way, all my (published information) including ‘Clocks Magazine’ says that No. 66 was “subsumed” into No’s 65 and 64 not demolished, for better accommodation that T.C. Noble refers to in “Commemorations of Temple Bar” 1869 as “modernisation” not demolition.
Regards,
Bren Calver.
Martyn,
Martyn,
Please note, I meant to say above, “Memorials of Temple Bar” not commemorations.
“Memorials of Temple Bar” by author/eye witness T.C. Noble, quotes Grahams last old workshop as listed at No.151, in Symonds book on “Thomas Tompion”, being on the north side of Fleet Street, opposite the Bolt-In-Tun, as “the last in Fleet Street to be modernised”, which literally means as the English Dictionary defines the Word “Modernised”, not demolished! After all, it would have been catastrophic if the whole of Fleet Street including Tompions premises at No.67, had been demolished while the whole street was in chaos with Main Drain laying, as seen in the 1845 “illustrated London News”.
Demolition, was a term first reported in the Pall Mall Gazzett 1889 so. not a term in common use. “Modernisation, as previously explained, was permitted under 1840-50 London Metropolitan Building Regulation for older Buildings, Section 9, XXVIII for improving accommodation explainedin my thesis, Page.27. Therefore, Tompions premises were still standing after 1850 the year Mudge & Dutton’s old shop was “modernised”. Furthermore as previously explained, Tompions premises are listed in the 1842/43 Post Office Directories as occupied stil,l so, demolition would be inconvenient to say the least.
Finally, I fail to see how anyone can say No.66, (which was only 11ft wide) half the width of White Friars Street 22ft, according to the Goad Insurance Map of 1885, and the Deed Conveyance for No.67 by Ironmongers Co., could be today’s No.66, (which is 16 ft wide).
I think this shows how wrong illusionists are , for the continued existence of the Boars Head, when, the “Sphere Magazine” in 1921 mentions its passing as a former neighbour to the Bolt-Im-Ton, and, John Tallis shows in 1847 this very narrow medieval building gone. Re-numbering after Dunstan House was built made old No.67 No.66. Therefore, Trade Directors could not detect a surrogate building, so, it appeared “business as usual”. I do hope your readers are seeing these e-mails, and my efforts to openly explain my hypothesis are not a waste of time, because that would be unfair,cowardly, and defamatory. If the idea is to continue defamatory remarks for third parties while “Moderation” is in progress, then there will be consequences.
Please reply.
Regards,
Bren Calver.
The whole problem is that your entire claim is easily disproved nonsense. There are multiple pieces of evidence against the idea that No 67 was never demolished and that today’s No 66 is the old No 67, but the clearest and simplest is the two drawings of Nos 65, 66 and 67 Fleet Street by John Tallis in the two editions of his London Street View from 1838-40 and 1847. They clearly show that while No 67 is a new building in 1847, No 66 is unchanged and identical: it is not, and cannot, be No 67 renumbered, because the building façade of No 66 in 1847 is the same as the façade of No 66 in 1838-40, and clearly NOT the same as the façade of No 67 in 1838-40, including the chimney between Nos 66 and 65, while the entrance to Boar’s Head Yard is still to the immediate right of No 66 in 1847, just as it was in 1838-40. Take a look at page 70 (1838-40) and page 277 (1847) here https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051808932&seq=7