Page 146 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - London

144  L ONDON AREA B Y AREA

t St Andrew,
Holborn
5 St Andrew St EC4. Map 14 E1.
Tel 020 7583 7394. 1 Chancery Lane.
Open 9am–5pm Mon–Fri.
5 1:10pm Tue & Thu, 7pm Wed. 7
∑ standrewholborn.org.uk
The medieval church that
stood here survived the Great
Fire but in 1668, renowned
architect Christopher Wren was
asked to redesign it. The lower
part of the tower is virtually all
that remains of the earlier
church. One of Wren’s most
spacious churches, it was gutted
during World War II but faithfully
Inside the historic Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub restored as the church of the
London trade guilds.
e Ye Olde Cheshire witty (and often contentious) Benjamin Disraeli, the Jewish-
Cheese remarks that his biographer, born prime minister, was
James Boswell, recorded and baptized here in 1817, at the
145 Fleet St EC4. Map 14 E1. published. Johnson lived at age of 12. In the 19th century,
Tel 020 7353 6170. 1 Blackfriars. 17 Gough Square from 1748 a charity school was attached
Open 11am–11pm Mon–Fri, to 1759. He compiled the first to the church.
noon–11pm Sat, noon–7pm Sun. definitive English dictionary
See Pubs and Bars pp312–15.
(published in 1755) in the
attic, where six scribes and y Holborn Viaduct
There has been an inn here for assistants stood all day at EC1. Map 14 F1. 1 Farringdon, St
centuries and parts of this build- high desks. Paul’s, Chancery Lane.
ing date back to 1667, when the The house, built before 1700,
Cheshire Cheese was rebuilt retains some period features This piece of Victorian ironwork
after the Great Fire of 1666. and is furnished with 18th- was erected in the 1860s as
The diarist Samuel Pepys often century pieces. There is a small part of a much-needed traffic
drank here in the 17th century, collection of exhibits relating scheme. It is best seen from
but it was Dr Samuel Johnson’s to Johnson and the times in Farringdon Street, which is
(see below) association with “the which he lived, including a tea linked to the bridge by a
Cheese” that made it a place of set belonging to his friend Mrs staircase. Climb up and see
pilgrimage for the 19th-century Thrale and pictures of Johnson the statues of City heroes and
literati. Novelists Mark Twain and and his contemporaries. There bronze images representing
Charles Dickens were frequent are also replica Georgian Commerce, Agriculture, Science
visitors. This is one of few pubs costumes for children to try on. and Fine Arts.
to have kept the 18th-century
arrangement of small rooms
with fireplaces, tables and
benches, instead of knocking
rooms into larger bars.

r Dr Johnson’s
House
17 Gough Sq EC4. Map 14 E1.
Tel 020 7353 3745. 1 Blackfriars,
Chancery Lane, Temple. Open May–
Sep: 11am–5:30pm Mon–Sat; Oct–
Apr: 11am–5pm Mon–Sat.
Closed pub hols. & 9 =
∑ drjohnsonshouse.org
The oft-quoted Dr Samuel
Johnson was an 18th-century
scholar famous for the many Holborn Viaduct viewed from below on Farringdon Street

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