St Stephen's Tavern, London

An 1875 pub sited adjacent to the Houses of Parliament and with a resplendent interior full of impressive mirrors and woodwork.

 This grand five-storey building has the year 1875 helpfully engraved in stone on its exterior. Inside retains some exuberant fittings which may well date from that year or possibly a decade or two later. On entering, one is instantly impressed by the curvaceous bar counter and by the lofty ceiling which is decked out with ornately carved wooden panels. Then one notices the tall bar-back in which are five ornate mirrors, reflecting light from Victorian-style globular lamps which hang in front of them. Above these is a series of around fifteen mirror-fronted cupboards – so high up that it’s hard to imagine what they were once used for.

There are three sets of external double doors, each containing patterned glass and they bear the words ‘Bar’, ‘Public Bar’ and ‘Grill Room’.  This might suggest that there were once three ground floor rooms, not the current two. The glass in the doors is a combination of older panes and replacement ones.  On entering through the Bridge Street doors, a ‘blind’ window – also containing patterned glass – once looked out onto a covered arcade, but this has recently been sealed off.  

In the 1980s the pub closed down and did not re-open until 2003 when it was sympathetically restored by the brewery Hall and Woodhouse. A mezzanine floor, furnished in Victorian style, was installed at that time and it allows a close-up view of the elaborate ceiling.

High up on a ground floor wall is the Division Bell, which is regularly sounded so that members of parliament know they have eight minutes to finish their drinks and attend a vote in the Houses of Parliament over the road, and to which the bell is connected via a telephone wire. The bell originally dates from the late 19th century and was restored when the pub was re-opened in 2003.