Pub names

The Late Night Gourmet said:
A favorite (I feel I should say favourite) of mine for many years has been this one, in Covent Garden:

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I stumbled in hear many decades ago, and I've made a point of visiting every time I've been back on London.
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There are a few Lamb and Flag pubs in the UK. You may know the one in Oxford. It's an old pub, dating from the 16th century and Thomas Hardy is reputed to have written much of Jude the Obscure in this establishment. The pub fascia is remarkably similar to the Covent Garden one.

Almost opposite the Lamb and Flag (on St Giles) stands the even more curiously-named Eagle and Child. Locals used to refer to this pub as the Bird and Brat.

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This is one we found by accident in the 1990's, and we've gone back every time we've been to London since:
The Grenadier - Belgravia

The Grenadier - Belgravia

First time I ever had quails' eggs was here. I think it's since become a Fuller's house, or Marston or some other pub conglomerate, as it had a very chain-pub feel to it the last time we were there (2017).
 
There are actually very few 'pub' pubs in Guernsey. The majority are hotels with bars. And an awful lot have closed down since I were a lad, many due to the crack down about 20 odd years ago on drink driving.

Also, despite our Norman/Breton roots most of them have English names. My locals, The London House, The Mariners, the Trafalgar Inn (everyone calls it the Parrot rather than the Trafalgar as it used to have a parrot that would swear at customers.) And the English and Guernsey Arms, currently closed for refurbishment.

There are some places that retain Guernsey names though. The Cordeliers (something to do with rope making).

The Longfrie Hotel with its associated witch. All old houses in Guernsey had a witches stoop built into the wall. Usually just a piece of granite that stuck out high up on a gable end. The idea was that if a witch was tired of flying around on her broom, rather than her entering your house for a rest and cursing you she would rest on the stoop.

Where's a Witch to Rest? Chimney Stacks and Witches' Seats.

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There are a lot more pub pubs in our main town, St Peter Port and one of them is allegedly the only place in the British Isles where you can touch a pub and a church at the same time. The picture shows the gap at the bottom, the upper stories are only 18 inches apart.

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Getting back to the subject of odd names, you'll find a few pubs in the UK called The Swan With Two Necks. This doesn't relate to a particularly strange swan that happened to appear, but is a corruption of "two nicks." The story is that birds belonging to the crown were given one "nick" on their bills, but those belonging to vintners had two. There is a pub that is called The Swan With Two Nicks and it has the story on its website (no pun intended).

History | Swan with Two Nicks
 
Earlier, I mentioned an old Newcastle pub called the Cordwainers Arms. This reminded me that there is a pub in Oxford (along with one or two other places) called The Three Goats Heads.

"What on earth is he going on about?" I hear you ask. Well, it's quite simple, really. The coat of arms of The Worshipful Society of Cordwainers featured...three goats heads. So there is the link.
 
Wyshiepoo said:
There are a lot more pub pubs in our main town, St Peter Port and one of them is allegedly the only place in the British Isles where you can touch a pub and a church at the same time. The picture shows the gap at the bottom, the upper stories are only 18 inches apart.

View attachment 50448
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...and, he bursts into flames soon after the picture was taken.
 
Scottish pubs tend to have very different names to English ones, so you won't find many Red Lion or Prince of Wales names here. Among pubs in Edinburgh, one oddity is a pair of nearby bars in Young Street, in the centre of the city. One is called the Oxford Bar and one the Cambridge Bar. It's not entirely clear why these pubs were named in this way. These days, the Oxford is better known because of being the haunt of a fictional detective, Rebus, who featured in many of the novels by the author Ian Rankin.
 
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