The Blackfriar

174 Queen Victoria Street, London EC4, nicholsonspubs.co.uk

It was the ‘dream team’ of poet John Betjeman and Raine Spencer, later the stepmother of Diana, Princess of Wales, who saved The Blackfriar pub when it was threatened with demolition in the 1960s. Now it is Grade-II listed, and an indelible part of the southwest corner of the City of London. The pub stands on the site of a medieval Dominican friary (whose friars wore black mantles, hence the name Blackfriar). When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries it became a parliament chamber and possibly approved the dissolution of the King’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1532.

The Blackfriar was built in Art Nouveau style in 1875, 11 years before nearby Blackfriars Station opened. It’s shaped like a narrow wedge of cheese. To make sense of that, you have to imagine the higgledy-piggledy collection of houses and shops that would have squeezed it from all sides so tightly that you could only enter by narrow alleys. They are all long since demolished.

In 1905, it was remodelled by architect Herbert Fuller-Clark. A large, smiling statue of a friar over the front door encourages you in, to discover an interior, largely the work of artist Henry Poole and sculptor Frederick Callcott, that has taken Arts and Crafts design and run to St Paul’s Cathedral and back with it. There are copper reliefs of monks carrying fruit, fishing for their Friday supper and tucking into pies. Various deadly sins are represented while the devil amuses himself by playing the accordion. Stained glass, mosaics, relics - they’re all in here. The atmosphere is great - happily everyone ignores a slogan that reads Silence is Golden - there’s a changing selection of cask ales and the menu has classics like ale pie and game pudding that may possibly also have been enjoyed by medieval Dominican friars.

Photo: Big Ben In Japan, Flickr