The "Old Bell," Holborn, ca.1884

From: Henry Dixon & Son

RA Collection: Art

"In the letter-press to a former series (Nos. 49 to 60), reference was made to the "Old Bell" and the Inns of Southwark as being the only Inns of the old type still left in London. The house is said to date from the early part of the 16th century, though, of course, the present building is comparatively modern. The arms, carved in stone, let into the front, are those of Sir Thomas Fowler, one of the Fowlers of Islington, a great family and Lords of the Manor of Barnsbury in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. (Lewis's History of Islington, p.164). The "Old Bell" still retains something of its renown as a coaching Inn. The passer-by may note, in the summer months, placards announcing the hours of departure and arrival not only of a daily omnibus, but of an occasional coach - not one of the amateur revivals of the last few years, but a genuine coach, a survival from the days before railways. The "Old Bell" has been a favourite with more than one novelist. Mr William Black has introduced it in his Strange Adventures of a Phaeton, where he speaks of "the Old Bell Inn in Holborn, an ancient hostelry which used, in bygone times, to send its relays of stage coaches to Oxford, Cheltenham, Enfield, Abingdon, and a score of other places. Now from the quaint little yard, which is surrounded by frail and dilapidated galleries of wood, that tell of the grandeur of other days, there starts but a solitary omnibus, which daily whisks a few country people and their parcels down to Uxbridge, and Chalfont, and Amersham, and Wendover.""

The above description, by Alfred Marks, has been taken from the letterpress which accomapnies the photographs.