The George Inn, LondonThe George Inn
- Best time
- A weekday afternoon — the courtyard fills from six
- Getting there
- Off Borough High Street, between London Bridge and Borough stations
Why it’s in the log
Ask which London pub is oldest and you start an argument. The George is the nearest thing to a straight answer, because both halves of its claim can be checked. An inn stood here by 1542, when it appears on a map of Southwark, and the building you drink in went up in 1677, after a fire destroyed most of the borough the year before. It is listed Grade I — the only pub in this collection with that grade — and has belonged to the National Trust since 1937.
The courtyard is the reason to come. Galleries once ran around three sides of it; the west half still carries two tiers, the lower on cantilevered beams and the upper on wooden Doric columns. Every other galleried coaching inn in London is gone, which is a stranger fact than it sounds for a city that once had dozens of them lining this road out towards Canterbury.
Inside is a series of small bars rather than one room, and the front parlour keeps its old settles. The courtyard wins in summer and fills early; the interior is better on a weekday afternoon, when you can actually see it.
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