They met at the Cheshire Cheese and in the 'Domino Room' of the Café Royal.
![ye old ye old](https://www.dailyherald.com/storyimage/DA/20141208/news/141208533/AR/0/AR-141208533.jpg)
Originally not much more than a dining club, it produced anthologies of poetry in 18. The Rhymers' Club was a group of London-based poets, founded in 1890 by W. In a letter to a friend he wrote, "Yesterday, I looked in at the Garrick at lunchtime, took one glance of loathing at the mob, and went off to lunch by myself at the Cheshire Cheese." The pub is mentioned by name in some of his books as well. Wodehouse, though so many of his characters were members of posh London clubs, often preferred the homey intimacy of the pub. The Cheshire Cheese pub appears in Anthony Trollope's novel Ralph the Heir, where one of the characters, Ontario Moggs, is described as speaking "with vigor at the debating club at the Cheshire Cheese in support of unions and the rights of man." Stevenson mentions the Cheese in The Dynamiter (1885), 'a select society at the Cheshire Cheese engaged my evenings.' A Tale of Two Cities was in part the inspiration for the American children's book The Cheshire Cheese Cat by Carmen Agra Deedy, Randall Wright and Barry Moser, which is set in the pub. Ĭharles Dickens had been known to use the establishment frequently, and it is alluded to in his A Tale of Two Cities: following Charles Darnay’s acquittal on charges of high treason, Sydney Carton invites him to dine, "drawing his arm through his own" Carton leads him to Fleet Street "up a covered way, into a tavern … where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine".
![ye old ye old](https://theculturetrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/d1f31m.jpg)
The final lines of the ballad insist upon the veracity of the tale and even that the children's bones may be seen for proof displayed at the Cheshire Cheese. At The Johnson Club supper, 13 December 1892, 'an eloquent gentleman, present, an Irish former MP, pointed out that when Johnson acted on his suggestion "let us take a walk down Fleet Street" the Cheshire Cheese must of necessity have been included among his places of call.'Ī 1680 broadside ballad called A New Ballad of the Midwives Ghost tells a fantastical story of how a midwife haunted the house where she died until she was able to induce the new residents there to dig up the bones of some bastard children she had made away with and buried there. However, there is no recorded evidence that Johnson ever visited the pub, only that he lived close by, at 17 Gough Square. Wodehouse and Samuel Johnson are all said to have been 'regulars'. The literary figures Oliver Goldsmith, Mark Twain, Alfred Tennyson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, G.K. The pub is currently owned and operated by the Samuel Smith Brewery. In the bar room are posted plaques showing famous people who were regulars. In winter, open fireplaces are used to keep the interior warm. The entrance to this pub is situated in a narrow alleyway and is very unassuming, yet once inside visitors will realise that the pub occupies a lot of floor space and has numerous bars and gloomy rooms. The vaulted cellars are thought to belong to a 13th-century Carmelite monastery which once occupied the site.
![ye old ye old](https://www.pitchup.com/images/3/image/private/s--utF0gQIc--/c_limit,h_2400,w_3200/e_improve,fl_progressive/q_auto/b_rgb:000,g_south_west,l_pitchup.com_wordmark_white_watermark,o_15/v1542300116/ye_old_swan/396973.jpg)
Some of the interior wood panelling is nineteenth century, some older, perhaps original. While there are several older pubs which have survived because they were beyond the reach of the fire, or like The Tipperary on the opposite side of Fleet Street because they were made of stone, this pub continues to attract interest due to the lack of natural lighting inside. There has been a pub at this location since 1538. Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is one of a number of pubs in London to have been rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire of 1666. Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is located in an alley off Fleet Street