[Gllug] London Monopoly Pub Crawl

[Pete Ryland]

Dear friends,

You are cordially invited to the inaugural London Monopoly Pub Crawl next
Friday and Saturday.

Please find attached the preliminary itinerary.

Pete
07793670215
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The London Monopoly Tour

London and Monopoly have a lot in common.  They each have strange and
interesting histories.  Both have amazing intricacies all too easy to glaze
over.  And millions devoutly love each, but few could tell you why.

When Victor Watson of Waddingtons bought the Commonwealth and European rights
to Monopoly in the '30s, he sent his secretary and his son off from Leeds to
big old industrial London (indeed housing more people than it does today) to
map out a board suitable for players on this side of the Atlantic.  We may
never know why they singled out the places they did, but they've nonetheless
been etched into our memory by that infernal board game.

I've tried to make the tour outlined below appeal to both drunks and
teetotallers alike, providing alternatives to pubs in some cases, and choosing
pubs with historical, as well as liquid, interest.  Despite that, this is still
a pub crawl of sorts, but probably not quite in the proportions of Lister's
birthday Monopoly pub crawl in 'Red Dwarf'.


Friday 16 January, 2004

1. Fleet Street 5:00pm
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
Wine Office Ct
145 Fleet St

Greater London is made up of three cities (London, Westminster and Southwark)
and eleven boroughs.  The City of Londinium, measuring only one square mile,
was a Roman town with a city wall, fragments of which still exist today.  There
were various gates around this wall, like Algate, Bishopsgate, Moorgate, etc
whose names still remain in cab-drivers' vocabularies long after the wall and
its gates have crumbled.  Fleet Street, itself named after the now-underground
River Fleet, and in more recent centuries famous for its relationship with the
printing and newspaper industry, meets London at Ludgate Circus, named after
King Lud, who ruled the area around 30BC.

Q. Name two famous people who were regulars at Ye Cheese.


2. The Strand 6:00pm
The Lyceum Tavern
354 Strand

Walk along the Strand to the Lyceum Tavern.  Australians may wish to check out
Australia's largest voting booth, Australia House, by detouring around Aldwych.

Whilst "Fleet" is Anglo-Saxon, "Strand" is Old Norse, meaning "beach", but it's
obviously a long time since the Thames' banks idled up this far.  Most notable
about this part of the Strand are the two churches in the middle of the road,
St Mary le Strand and St Clement Danes, where King Cnut himself is buried.
No. 1, the Strand was London's first numbered address.

Q. In what book (and film of the same name) was the nursery rhyme about the
Bells of St Clement's so important? 


3. Bow Street and Covent Garden 7:00pm
Walk up Wellington Street until it becomes Bow Street, then turn left on
Russell and get some food at Covent Garden.

If Covent Garden was an archer, then Bow Street, famous for the "Runners",
would be aptly named for its shape.  Covent Garden is instead a public square,
the country's first, whose name is a deviation from its previous use as a
garden for the Convent of St Peter of Westminster.  Architected by Inigo Jones
in 1630, the piazza has served as a fruit and vegetable market since 1649.  Bow
Street and Covent Garden have also been famous centres for theatre and opera
since around that time.

Q. Who were the Bow Street Runners?


4. Trafalgar Square 8:00pm
Walk down Henrietta Street, off the south corner of the square, weave around
Bedford Street and down Chandos Place and William IV Street then left down St
Martin's Lane to Trafalgar Square.  Take some photos.

Whilst St Martin's in the Fields and the National Gallery are historically
significant, Nelson's Column is more so.  The country's greatest naval hero,
Lord Horatio Nelson died in 1805 in the Battle of Trafalgar, off the south
coast of Spain.  Using novel tactics and aggressive strategies against the
heavily-armed Franco-Spanish fleet, the admiral defeated Napoleon's forces
without losing a single British ship.  This was the decisive battle of the
Napoleonic wars.

Q. How tall are the column and the statue of Nelson?


5. The Purples 8:15pm
The Clarence,
53 Whitehall

Either explore the area around Whitehall, Northumberland Avenue and Pall Mall,
or relax and have a drink at the rather touristy Clarence on Whitehall.

To its south, the main roads away from Trafalgar Square are Northumberland
Avenue, Whitehall, The Mall, and Pall Mall.  At the other end of Whitehall,
named after the royal residence that once stood there, lies the Houses of
Parliament and Big Ben, then roughly from the bottom of the hill up we have the
Cabinet War Rooms, the Cenotaph, the Ministry of Defence, Downing Street, the
Horse Guards, and Scotland Yard.  The Mall splits St James's Park and Green
Park with Buckingham Palace at the other end.

Q. If not the clock, then to what does "Big Ben" actually refer?


6. Leicester Square 9:00pm
Yates's
29-30 Leicester Square

Keep walking north, back through Trafalgar Square, and on the west side of the
National Gallery, until you find Leicester Square.  Detour via Pall Mall if you
really feel the need.

Leicester Square was named after the Second Earl of Leicester who acquired it
in 1630 and developed it as a fashionable residential square.  By the late
1800s, it had changed into a bustling cultural centre, full of hotels, theatres
and shops.  Over the first half of the 1900s, the theatres and shops were
converted to cinemas, pubs and clubs which more or less remain to this day.

Q. What famous theatre made way for the Odeon cinema in 1937?


7. Coventry Street 10:30pm
Onanon
The London Pavilion
Piccadilly Circus

Head west from the north side of the square along Coventry Street (follow the
signs - and tourists - to Picadilly Cirucus).  The entrance to Onanon is on
Shaftesbury Avenue.



Saturday 17 January, 2004

8. Old Kent Road 12:00pm
The Lord Nelson
386 Old Kent Road

Hopefully they will be serving coffee and food at this time.


9. Past Fenchurch Street Station and Whitechapel Road to Liverpool Street Station 1:00pm
Hamilton Hall
Unit 32
The Concourse
Liverpool Street Station

The 78 bus goes straight to Liverpool Street Station, briskly trundling past
Fenchurch Street Station and Whitechapel Road.  Here, there is the option of a
pint or two in Hamilton Hall, a skate at Broadgate's open-air ice rink (weather
permitting), or a bite to eat in the station.


10. The Angel of Islington 3:30pm
The Angel
3-5 Islington High Street

Catch the 205 from Liverpool Street to Angel.


11. Pentonville Road to Kings Cross Station 4:30pm
The Dolphin
47 Tonbridge St
Kings Cross

Catch the 205 along Pentonville Road to Kings Cross Station


12. Euston Road to Marylebone Station 5:30pm
The Victoria and Albert
Melcombe Place

Back onto the 205 along Euston Road.  Get off at Marylebone Station.


13. Oxford Street 7:00pm
The Tottenham
6 Oxford Street

Either get the tube to Tottenham Court Road, or catch the 453 bus to Oxford
Circus, then jump on any bus down Oxford Street to TCR.


14. Regent Street 8:30pm
The Clachan
34 Kingly Street

Back on a bus the other way down Oxford Street to Oxford Circus, then walk
south down Regent Street, turn left at the "To Carnaby Street" sign and it's
the pub on the corner.


15. Great Marlborough Street 9:30pm
O'Neills
37-38 Great Marlborough Street

Walk north up Kingly and turn right into Great Marlborough Street and it's on
the right.


16. Near to New Bond Street, Mayfair 10:30pm
The Grosvenor Arms
2 Grosvenor St
Mayfair

Go back across to the other side of Regent Street, then head down Maddox Street
until it hits New Bond Street.


17. Picadilly
Atlantic Bar & Grill
20 Glasshouse Street

Down Regent Street and veering left down Glasshouse Street.


Bibliography:

Monopoly Board Game, Parker Bros and Waddingtons.

Geographers of the A-Z Map Co Ltd, A-Z London Street Map, 2001.

Fallon, Steve and Yale, Pat, London, 2nd ed., Lonely Planet, 2000.

Moore, Tim, Do Not Pass Go (From the Old Kent Road to Mayfair), Yellow Jersey
Press, 2002

Duncan, Andrew, Secret London (Globetrotter Walking Guides), New Holland
Publishers, 2003

Bartsch-Parker et al., British Phrasebook, Lonely Planet, 1999

Ackroyd, Peter, London: A Biography, Vintage, 2001

http://ultimatepubguide.com/

http://www.beerintheevening.com/

http://www.coventgardenlife.com/info/history.htm

http://www.britannia.com/history/londonhistory/


Answers to Questions:

1. Johnson, Voltaire and Dickens amongst others.
2. 1984, by George Orwell
3. London's first crime-fighting force.
4. 165' and 17' respectively.
5. The bell.
6. The Alhambra.
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