A Soho institution with a substantially complete Taylor, Walker & Co interior of 1937.
The Coach and Horses was built in the 1840s, though the distinctive pub frontage belongs to an 1889 remodelling by the Cannon Brewery. This work added the imposing cast-iron columns, with ornamental necks and weighty square capitals of a type not seen elsewhere in London. The interior belongs chiefly to another phase of remodelling in 1937, undertaken following a takeover by Taylor, Walker & Co, who fitted-out the three distinct bar rooms with simple light-oak panelling, partition screens, and a long, tapered bar counter with mostly contemporary bar-back shelving. The pub has three separate bars, each originally with its own entrance. The public bar is on the Greek Street side, with a private bar in the middle and a saloon bar entered around the corner from Romilly Street. The two entrances to the saloon bar demonstrate that the 1937 refit amalgamated formerly distinct rooms from the 1889 arrangement. The three rooms are separated by two walls running out from the bar, fitted with fielded panelling with wide openings where doors would have been (these removed around 1960). The servery runs along the back wall and the long counter has an inset red linoleum top. The bar-back runs in line with the counter and the upper section straddling the doorway to the first floor has back-lit signage advertising ‘Double Diamond’, ‘Ind Coope’ and ‘Skol Lager’, which was introduced following another takeover in 1959 by Ind Coope (though draught Double Diamond was only introduced in 1962, so this signage must be slightly later). There are several subtle but instructive differences to the bar counter which reflect the status of each of the rooms. To the public bar, the countertop overhangs the tapered counter and this, along with the absence of a terrazzo riser, appears to have been designed to accommodate bar stools. Drinking at the bar was generally discouraged in smarter bar rooms into the 1930s and, correspondingly, the private bar has a much narrower counter with a substantial terrazzo riser, seemingly contrived to deter bar drinkers here. The saloon bar, as the smartest room in the pub, continues the counter profile and the terrazzo riser of the private bar, but drinkers here were afforded an additional degree of comfort through the inclusion of a brick fireplace, WCs and also the service of hot meals, which could be sent down via a dumbwaiter integrated within the panelling of the east wall.
Between 1943 and 2006, drinkers entering the Coach and Horses would be greeted (in the loosest sense) by Norman Balon, the self-proclaimed ‘rudest landlord in London’. Balon’s tenure - recollected in his 1991 memoir ‘You're Barred, You Bastards’ - saw it favoured by the writers, artists, musicians and actors of Soho: amongst the many notable regulars were Jeffrey Bernard, Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, Peter O’Toole and John Hurt. Something of the bohemian, debauched atmosphere of the pub was captured in Keith Waterhouse’s 1989 play ‘Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell’, with the saloon bar recreated for the stage of the nearby Apollo Theatre. From the 1960s, the pub was also a regular meeting place for staff of The Spectator and Private Eye, the pages of which often included references to ‘the Coach’ (most notably in Jeffrey Bernard’s ‘Low Life’ Spectator column and Michael Heath’s cartoon strip ‘The Regulars’ in Private Eye).
A Soho institution with a substantially complete Taylor, Walker & Co interior of 1937.
The Coach and Horses was built in the 1840s, though the distinctive pub frontage belongs to an 1889 remodelling by the Cannon Brewery. This work added the imposing cast-iron columns, with ornamental necks and weighty square capitals of a type not seen elsewhere in London. The interior belongs chiefly to another phase of remodelling in 1937, undertaken following a takeover by Taylor, Walker & Co, who fitted-out the three distinct bar rooms with simple light-oak panelling, partition screens, and a long, tapered bar counter with mostly contemporary bar-back shelving. The pub has three separate bars, each originally with its own entrance. The public bar is on the Greek Street side, with a private bar in the middle and a saloon bar entered around the corner from Romilly Street. The two entrances to the saloon bar demonstrate that the 1937 refit amalgamated formerly distinct rooms from the 1889 arrangement. The three rooms are separated by two walls running out from the bar, fitted with fielded panelling with wide openings where doors would have been (these removed around 1960). The servery runs along the back wall and the long counter has an inset red linoleum top. The bar-back runs in line with the counter and the upper section straddling the doorway to the first floor has back-lit signage advertising ‘Double Diamond’, ‘Ind Coope’ and ‘Skol Lager’, which was introduced following another takeover in 1959 by Ind Coope (though draught Double Diamond was only introduced in 1962, so this signage must be slightly later). There are several subtle but instructive differences to the bar counter which reflect the status of each of the rooms. To the public bar, the countertop overhangs the tapered counter and this, along with the absence of a terrazzo riser, appears to have been designed to accommodate bar stools. Drinking at the bar was generally discouraged in smarter bar rooms into the 1930s and, correspondingly, the private bar has a much narrower counter with a substantial terrazzo riser, seemingly contrived to deter bar drinkers here. The saloon bar, as the smartest room in the pub, continues the counter profile and the terrazzo riser of the private bar, but drinkers here were afforded an additional degree of comfort through the inclusion of a brick fireplace, WCs and also the service of hot meals, which could be sent down via a dumbwaiter integrated within the panelling of the east wall.
Between 1943 and 2006, drinkers entering the Coach and Horses would be greeted (in the loosest sense) by Norman Balon, the self-proclaimed ‘rudest landlord in London’. Balon’s tenure - recollected in his 1991 memoir ‘You're Barred, You Bastards’ - saw it favoured by the writers, artists, musicians and actors of Soho: amongst the many notable regulars were Jeffrey Bernard, Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, Peter O’Toole and John Hurt. Something of the bohemian, debauched atmosphere of the pub was captured in Keith Waterhouse’s 1989 play ‘Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell’, with the saloon bar recreated for the stage of the nearby Apollo Theatre. From the 1960s, the pub was also a regular meeting place for staff of The Spectator and Private Eye, the pages of which often included references to ‘the Coach’ (most notably in Jeffrey Bernard’s ‘Low Life’ Spectator column and Michael Heath’s cartoon strip ‘The Regulars’ in Private Eye).
