What it’s like on the boozy pub crawl voted London’s ‘best tourist experience’ by Tripadvisor – and one of the best in the world

Outside the Viaduct Tavern, opposite the Old Bailey, a political meeting is in full swing with pounding drums and chanting.

In the venerable old watering hole, dating from 1869, we sip Bombay Sapphire G&Ts, chilled with ice cut from a block using an ice pick behind the bar.

‘We’ consisted of 14 tourists, some from the US, a Canadian, a Hungarian, a tourist from India, a couple from Essex, a couple from Aberdeen, a man from Dorset and a few Londoners, including myself. We signed up for a ‘London Small Group Tour of Historical Pubs’, run by Liquid History Tours, rated five stars on Tripadvisor (after more than 9,300 reviews) and officially, according to Tripadvisor, the capital’s number one tourist experience.

Earlier, before heading to the Viaduct, we had met at St Paul’s tube station and strolled through Paternoster Square – where our tall, charming, fast-speaking guide Adam had told us how Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpiece had miraculously survived the Second World War.

This would be the first of four pubs. Next would be the Cockpit on St Andrew’s Hill, followed by Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street and the George on the Strand.

We have our drinking boots on, having been advised in our confirmation email to ‘line your stomach in appropriate style before taking part in the walk’. This email also contained a cheering quote from Queen Victoria: “Give my people plenty of beer, good beer and cheap beer, and there will be no revolution among them.”

Hear, hear! Although strictly speaking the Viaduct is an old gin palace, with a beautiful ruby ​​red stucco ceiling, paintings of Pre-Raphaelite girls, marble panels, copper chandeliers and a long curved bar.

According to Adam, the basement used to be a brothel, opium den and prison (for fighters or those who couldn’t pay the bills). We go down to look at the creepy place.

Tom Chesshyre has a pint at the Viaduct Tavern as part of Liquid History Tours’ ‘London Small Group Tour of Historical Pubs’ – voted the capital’s best tourist experience by Tripadvisor

Tom’s guide Adam takes them to the creepy basement of the Viaduct

The inside of Viaduct Tavern, right in the heart of London (not far from St Paul’s Cathedral)

Well refreshed we continue, past the rally, to the Cockpit.

Dating from 1787, it is on the site of a building once owned by William Shakespeare that burned down during the Great Fire of London in 1666. It would later become a cockfighting venue; spectator balconies remain above the bar.

Here Adam tells us that hanging baskets of flowers in the pub (as seen in the Cockpit) were originally introduced to combat the ‘foul smell of many old pub dwellers’, some of whom may have been ‘filthy and worked in the sewers’.

Then the barmaid, Candice, asks if me and Ben, a colleague from work, would like to have our picture taken standing behind the bar holding the pumps, as if we were on shift. We accept her kind offer.

Well refreshed (again…) after a pint of Sussex Best we continue with Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, also rebuilt after the Great Fire.

This is simply beautiful with its warren of corridors and cozy rooms, including a beautiful wood-paneled lounge and a barrel cellar where you, like us, can stand with pints of Samuel Smith Pure Brewed Organic Lager and imagine Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Samuel Johnson (former visitors) doing the same.

Well refreshed (ahem…) we move to the half-timbered George, founded in 1723, opposite the Royal Courts of Justice.

Tom and his colleague Ben Parker pour pints behind the bar of the Cockpit – the second stop on their tour

The Cockpit was a cockfighting venue – the spectator balconies remain above the bar

The inside of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street, another pub on the tour

We learned that The George had started as a coffee house and old time regulars included Horace Walpole, the Anglo-Irish poet Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson (again) and many of those left on the other side of the road by judges over the years.

We order pints of Regal Red Amber Ale, a decent brew.

Can we understand why this was officially London’s top experience? Absolute! And: cheers!