St James's Pubs

[@algonzales1809]

Tweedy, I was in London in October and used this video as a guide for my visit to the Mayfair area. After picking up a few Cuban cigars from Davidoffs up the street to take back to the Jersey shore, I hit the first Red Lion, The Golden Lion, Chequers and capped it off with a couple of martinis at Duke's bar...it was splendid gentleman's day out. Your videos are superb...best from America.

[@eclecticeddie3694]

You are awesome. I love all you pub videos. I will be opening my own pub soon and you inspire me with all of the places that you visit and feature. thank you so much

[@TweedyPubs]

Thank you for the very kind comment Eddie! ...and good luck with the pub opening!

[@Oscartherescuedog]

Let us know where you new pub is and we might try and have a “Fans of Tweedy” meet up there! I’m sure we could bump up the profits for the day (and night?) 😅

[@markjones327]

The main man tweedy 👍

[@PromisedUAMiracle]

Thank you for your films. I thoroughly enjoy the facts and the way you present the video. Keep up the good work.

[@liberty_and_justice67]

All the pubs looked great!

[@markjones327]

The tweedmeister strikes again !! What a great vid I was hooked start to finish yet again ! Thank you Kind sir your knowledge is impressive as usual 😊

[@TweedyPubs]

Thank you Mark, I'm really glad it struck a chord! Of course the pubs are the star of the show here, all I'm really doing is pointing a camera at them!

[@JK-pb3gv]

KZbin FINALLY suggested me a new (in both senses of the word) channel that is of interest! Have subscribed, enjoyed the video..!

[@TweedyPubs]

Thanks JK! Really glad to hear this is your cup of tea!

[@nigelwood4977]

Love your comment of the old fashioned barbers. Used to use one in Eversholt st next to Euston station, Harry an elderly Jewish chap would commence cutting your hair but would constantly be interrupted as he sold second hand trinkets from his shop window. If not that he had a group of violinist friends who would congregate in his back parlour, so you would be serenaded by violin playing as well as the interruption of the shop window. A haircut with Harry and friends was indeed an experience!

[@TweedyPubs]

He sounds wonderful - what a character!

[@COMEINTOMYWORLD]

Another great video. I bet you had a fun day!

[@LordFinsbury]

Red Lion on Duke of York Street was Ian Nairn's favourite London pub interior. Nairn's London is a great book.

[@andrewdolinskiatcarpathian]

Despite the scary price of the beer on offer, those pubs do look inviting. Once again, a cracking pub crawl. Entertaining and informative from beginning to end. 🍺👏👏👍😀

[@TweedyPubs]

Thanks Andrew! Yes, alas prices in London these days can be a bit eye watering. I mostly drink halves when making these videos, primarily because I want to remain fairly coherent throughout to talk about the pubs! ...but I found I soon got over whatever sense of embarrassment I might have felt for just ordering a half, and I still get to enjoy the interiors (more so in fact!) but only spend half as much!

[@andrewdolinskiatcarpathian]

@@TweedyPubs Ha ha, so very true. The past embarrassment of ordering a half has disappeared in this ever increasingly expensive age. In my youth it was unheard of. 🥴

[@daibhidhmor1710]

Thanks for doing this, it was very interesting. The Red Lion in Crown Passage was an occasional haunt of mine back in the late 80s. I think I've been in all of the pubs at some point. Cheers.

[@TweedyPubs]

Thank you, and I hope the video brought back good memories! I've only known the Red Lion for about 15 years - was it still more or less the same back in the 80s?

[@daibhidhmor1710]

@@TweedyPubs it hasn't changed at all based on your video. Good for them!

[@elnoonan5805]

Great video 👍

[@TweedyPubs]

Thank you!

[@johnsharp8632]

Thanks Tweedy for another beautifully presented selection of London pubs. The two Red Lion' s have always been favourites of mine. The Golden Lion and the Chequers are also excellent. Never even noticed The Blue Posts or The Three Crowns. I live not far from the Greene King Brewery in Bury St Edmunds and I never drink their IPA as I find it has little flavour or 'body'. I cannot understand why their superb Abbott Ale is rarely seen in the GK pubs London. As you pointed out GK do brew Ales supposedly based on the recipes of the Breweries they have bought out and closed. Ales like Morland's Old Speckled Hen and Ruddles Best. They taste nothing like the original brews and I never drink them. As for the frontage of The Golden Lion, I have always liked it and think it adds a bit of colour to an otherwise drab street.

[@bruceknights8330]

GK IPA is much improved these days. They dropped the abv slightly and increased the maltiness of it. Ot used to be very thin but now is a decent brew.

[@mitchelluk1445]

The red lion (first one) is such a gem of a pub, but to be fair most of the pubs st james has to offer are pretty decent

[@TweedyPubs]

I agree it is indeed an absolute gem!

[@GRAN160]

Thanks! I will be back in February and will check them out. Keep the videos coming

[@JohnAleman1]

Very interesting always interesting to see the interiors of the pubs and interesting to hear the price of a ale although some of them are scary 🍻

[@TweedyPubs]

Thanks John! Yes London pub prices are part of the reason I drink halves in these videos! (Although the main reason is I want to remain at least fairly coherent still by the end of the video...)

[@Tom______________]

Did you find a new hairdresser post Briggs? That place looked perfect. (Trying to aviod Turkish hairdressers - flames to the ears etc)

[@TweedyPubs]

Alas no I never found a good replacement. I had tried the other more famous St. James's / Mayfair barbers before Briggs (Geo F. Trumper / Truefit & Hill), years ago now, but I was a bit underwhelmed with both, especially given the prices involved. I also had a go with that new wave of trendy barbers like Murdock / Ruffians a few years back and they didn't really suit me either.

[@Tom______________]

Yes, I had Trumper in mind for awhile - I'm sure its very good - & will probably try - but I feel you shouldnt perhaps need to go to the high end traditional. I like the idea of just walking around the corner to the local somewhat run down barbers but it still having the exterior & furniture on point. Like the barbers equivilent to E Pellicci or Bar Italia or many of the Pubs you've shown or Briggs! Maybe its a thing of the past. @@TweedyPubs

[@johnrob6132]

Another well researched and interesting video of the St James`s area and a tour of it`s pubs. Tour sounds so much better than pub crawl don`t you think ? How do you remember all the facts and information that you give? Do you carry any notes with you to refer to? Look forward to the next one.

[@TweedyPubs]

Thanks JohnRob! Yes I agree "tour" sounds a bit more civilised than "crawl" but I certainly use the latter in some contexts. As a random aside I have encountered two other languages which have a fairly direct equivalent for pub crawl: "hashigo" in Japanese, which literally means something like "ladder"; and "giro d'ombra" in Italian (or possibly the Venetian dialect?) which literally means "journey through the shadows". The rationale being that wine in Venice was traditionally sold in shady spots (in the literal sense) to help keep it cool. I wish I could claim a more old fashioned system but recently I have been using Google Docs to write notes beforehand, which I can then read from my phone when out filming (and there's practically no chance I'd forget to take my phone). I probably spend more time doing the research than actually filming, even though I've already been to most of the pubs featured in these videos many times before... but I like to be as precise as reasonably possible about all the history mentioned. No doubt there are still mistakes, or things I just read and lazily accept without thoroughly scouring for evidence!

[@johnrob6132]

Hi . Interesting about the probable origins of pub crawl. Phones come in very handy for information as I think it would be very difficult to remember everything you present although I must say you give the appearance of doing it all from memory. I can imagine the research takes a lot of time and effort but the results make it all worthwhile as shown in the quality of your videos.@@TweedyPubs

[@davidbarrett1442]

Great to see charges etc explained correctly!

[@TweedyPubs]

I have to admit I had to look that up before making this video. I had previously used the word "device" to refer to an individual item in a coat of arms, and I got the sense that possibly in some contexts the two are interchangeable but maybe there's some nuance there...

[@ysgolgerlan]

Thanks for the video, I remember you mentioning that barber's shop in one of your other videos. 👍

[@TweedyPubs]

I did indeed! There were probably several elements of this video which I reused from that St. James's video over on the outdoors channel. However on that first video it was the morning so all the pubs were closed! I thought the area deserved revisiting when I could actually go to the pubs...

[@craigmacmillan2528]

Thanks for mentioning Phillip - the old Cypriot was the only one to cut my hair for over 40 years @@TweedyPubs

[@TweedyPubs]

@@craigmacmillan2528 That's amazing Craig! Did you work in the area? You must have got to know Phillip very well over that span of time! I only had the privilege of being a customer of Phillip's for perhaps three years towards the end of his career. I look back on those visits with great fondness. We talked about St. James's - and he described it as a village, and said in his mind it never really changed, which was heartwarming as it was already in the grip of some significant redevelopment in those years. We talked of his early years in London, as it happens I live in Kentish Town, and he had at one time lived there briefly - I think there are still remnants of a Greek / Cypriot community here today. He told me his hobby was visiting old churches in the countryside, and he had some photos of them in the barber shop. As can be expected for a man in his 90s, his memory was not what it once was, and so we'd often repeat the same topics of conversation each time I visited - I never minded, there was something timeless and comforting about being there. Much missed.

[@craigmacmillan2528]

Hi I first came to London in '71 to work in the City living on Chiltern street - somehow I found his shop when I was looking for a barber and never looked for another - I used to pop on the tube from the city to have my haircut over lunch time and then have a drink in the Red Lion - it hasn't changed much! - I remember one famous time walking into Phillip and having to wait as he has cutting Archbishop Runcie's hair!! There was a famous 50 year party that was given for him at next door's Ormand restaurant - it was arranged by Lord Brooke anf the Archbishop gave a speech - it was full of generals and admirals and everyone was boasting how long they had been cut by him - I felt very young as at the time had only had a history of 20 years and many had 40 years+! Philip was famous in that he never had electrical cutters and even used a straight razor to finish up - it is only subsequently that a barber has used electical cutters on my hair but it matters little as I now have very little hair!! I enjoy your pub videos and when I first came to London I made an attempt to have a drink in every pub in Soho (which took a little time!!) - my favourite and my local for my last 20 years working was the Star & Garter on Poland Street - in the 70s they used to do wicked sausage sandwiches Craig @@TweedyPubs

[@punkdonkey1]

I love your videos they are so informative and entertaining What is your favourite beer of all time

[@TweedyPubs]

Really glad to hear you're enjoying the videos! Favourite beer of all time is a very hard question! It has a lot to do with the place and the occasion. Harvey's Sussex Best can be spectacular when in Sussex (or the Royal Oak in Borough) but elsewhere is not always at its best. Timothy Taylor's Landlord is also an old favourite but I worry it's becoming a bit too ubiquitous and consequently isn't always given the care it deserves either. One I yearn for is Hancock's HB, as served at the Cherry Tree in Tintern, sadly now long closed. That was just divine, but probably wouldn't be the same in another pub. Otter Bitter when in the right pub in Devon (the Cherub in Dartmouth springs to mind) can also be spectacular.

[@punkdonkey1]

They all sound really good

[@liamkatt6434]

The Golden Lion is so beautiful. So sadly, modern pub designers lacked this vision.

[@GRAN160]

Love the videos. If you had to pick one area of London for a pub crawl, which area would it be?

[@TweedyPubs]

Holborn, without a doubt! My ideal pub crawl would be Ye Old Mitre, the Cittie of Yorke, the Seven Stars and possibly one or two others (Princess Louise?) depending on how I feel on the day. St. James's and Belgravia would probably be fighting it out for second place.

[@StewartyMac]

Where on earth did the guy who passed behind you at 9.56 go? He was lighting up a cigarette, so couldn't have went inside the pub, and it didn't look like there was an edit there. He just vanished.

[@John-xh3fd]

He went down the alleyway to the side of the pub.

[@AnyoneForToast]

Thanks for another interesting pub walk, Mr Tweed. I see you are now gathering thousands of views on your "pubs" channel, hopefully, this will help garner some more interest in your "Wine with Tweedy" and "Tweedy Outdoors" channels too. Hint, hint, to any new viewers out there...

[@TweedyPubs]

Hahaha thank you AFT! Yes the pubs channel does seem to have got off to a decent start. As I was discussing with WC21 Productions (UK) Ltd recently, to my surprise this is a bit of an under-served niche on KZbin, there are some pub videos out there but it seems there isn't a huge amount focusing more on the sort of historic / characterful pubs I like. Fear not though I won't be abandoning the Outdoors channel! (Although I'm not sure the wine one has really found its feet yet...)

[@WC21UKProductionsLtd]

Really enjoying these. I felt that I’d seen you outside your old barber’s shop before - maybe on Tweedy Outdoors? Or perhaps it was a dream! The first Red Lion looked great and I do hope the construction works don’t alter the character of the passage. In the days when I went to London, I always held the view that the best pubs were up such passageways!

[@TweedyPubs]

@@WC21UKProductionsLtd Yes indeed! There was an "Outdoors" video where I did a similar stroll around St. James's but didn't actually go into any pubs because it was the morning and they weren't open yet (it was more wine shopping focused). I completely agree, a pub being hidden down an alleyway is a very indicator it's going to be good!

[@infoscholar5221]

In NEAL Apallachia, we pronounce St. John as "sin jin." anybody?

[@MickDouglas-co1fy]

You were walking through a goldmine of sinister British history with this vid. The whole area is Freemason central hence the chequers everywhere. Across "Masons" Yard was a club named Scotch of St James and that was where all the Tavistock controlled Rock Bands used to congregate in the 60s. The Rolling Stone,Animals,Hendrix and The Beatles. Tavistock is an institution that came out of the Frankfurt School with Sigmund Freud being one of the main protagonists. They are involved in social engineering,mind control etc. Those bands seldom wrote their own music with the likes of Theodore Adorno and George Martin writing most of The Beatles cannon. The aim was to break up the family and turn the youth away from God and Christ.

[@TweedyPubs]

I had no idea about the St. James's connection with Freemasonry but a quick search on the web does suggest Henry Jermyn was a Grand Master, so I suppose the later associations may well stem from there! So many layers...

[@askl23]

Ha, you might be interested in a book about the American variant of that tale: “Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon”

[@kevanhubbard9673]

Handfuls unless you have 6 fingers 🤞!

[@JohnnyNorfolk]

I think you should mark down those playing music like the Red Lion.

[@TweedyPubs]

I agree, I don't like music in pubs either - there just seems no need for it.