From Old London Taverns by Edward Callow (1899):
Some fifty to sixty years ago a roughness – but it was a cosy roughness – pervaded, with a few exceptions, the taverns and chop-houses both in the City and West End. This has since given place to a highly decorative style, that does not invariably include comfort, to say nothing of cosiness. Mirrors, coloured glass, massive brasswork, flashy furniture and encaustic tiles tend more to please the eye than the satisfy either the palate or the stomach: the hungry and thirsty individual looks round in vain for a comfortable seat – indeed a seat of any kind – and is compelled to adopt, nolens volens, that modern habit of standing up at a bar to eat his lunch or dinner, that the hurry-skurry of the present day has introduced.
2 replies on “A Victorian moans about pubs”
Beer’s much better when you’re sat on a spike.
“modern habit of standing up at a bar to eat his lunch or dinner, that the hurry-skurry of the present day has introduced”
Sounds like things haven’t progressed too much since 1899. 😀