St James's Pubs 

Thank you for the very kind comment Eddie! ...and good luck with the pub opening!

Let us know where you new pub is and we might try and have a “Fans of Tweedy” meet up there! I’m sure we could bump up the profits for the day (and night?) 😅

The main man tweedy 👍

He sounds wonderful - what a character!

Thank you Mark, I'm really glad it struck a chord! Of course the pubs are the star of the show here, all I'm really doing is pointing a camera at them!

Thanks JK! Really glad to hear this is your cup of tea!

Thank you!

I agree it is indeed an absolute gem!

GK IPA is much improved these days. They dropped the abv slightly and increased the maltiness of it. Ot used to be very thin but now is a decent brew.

Thanks Andrew! Yes, alas prices in London these days can be a bit eye watering. I mostly drink halves when making these videos, primarily because I want to remain fairly coherent throughout to talk about the pubs! ...but I found I soon got over whatever sense of embarrassment I might have felt for just ordering a half, and I still get to enjoy the interiors (more so in fact!) but only spend half as much!

@@TweedyPubs Ha ha, so very true. The past embarrassment of ordering a half has disappeared in this ever increasingly expensive age. In my youth it was unheard of. 🥴

Thank you, and I hope the video brought back good memories! I've only known the Red Lion for about 15 years - was it still more or less the same back in the 80s?

@@TweedyPubs it hasn't changed at all based on your video. Good for them!

Thanks John! Yes London pub prices are part of the reason I drink halves in these videos! (Although the main reason is I want to remain at least fairly coherent still by the end of the video...)

I have to admit I had to look that up before making this video. I had previously used the word "device" to refer to an individual item in a coat of arms, and I got the sense that possibly in some contexts the two are interchangeable but maybe there's some nuance there...

I did indeed! There were probably several elements of this video which I reused from that St. James's video over on the outdoors channel. However on that first video it was the morning so all the pubs were closed! I thought the area deserved revisiting when I could actually go to the pubs...

Thanks for mentioning Phillip - the old Cypriot was the only one to cut my hair for over 40 years @@TweedyPubs

@@craigmacmillan2528 That's amazing Craig! Did you work in the area? You must have got to know Phillip very well over that span of time! I only had the privilege of being a customer of Phillip's for perhaps three years towards the end of his career. I look back on those visits with great fondness. We talked about St. James's - and he described it as a village, and said in his mind it never really changed, which was heartwarming as it was already in the grip of some significant redevelopment in those years. We talked of his early years in London, as it happens I live in Kentish Town, and he had at one time lived there briefly - I think there are still remnants of a Greek / Cypriot community here today. He told me his hobby was visiting old churches in the countryside, and he had some photos of them in the barber shop. As can be expected for a man in his 90s, his memory was not what it once was, and so we'd often repeat the same topics of conversation each time I visited - I never minded, there was something timeless and comforting about being there. Much missed.

Hi I first came to London in '71 to work in the City living on Chiltern street - somehow I found his shop when I was looking for a barber and never looked for another - I used to pop on the tube from the city to have my haircut over lunch time and then have a drink in the Red Lion - it hasn't changed much! - I remember one famous time walking into Phillip and having to wait as he has cutting Archbishop Runcie's hair!! There was a famous 50 year party that was given for him at next door's Ormand restaurant - it was arranged by Lord Brooke anf the Archbishop gave a speech - it was full of generals and admirals and everyone was boasting how long they had been cut by him - I felt very young as at the time had only had a history of 20 years and many had 40 years+! Philip was famous in that he never had electrical cutters and even used a straight razor to finish up - it is only subsequently that a barber has used electical cutters on my hair but it matters little as I now have very little hair!! I enjoy your pub videos and when I first came to London I made an attempt to have a drink in every pub in Soho (which took a little time!!) - my favourite and my local for my last 20 years working was the Star & Garter on Poland Street - in the 70s they used to do wicked sausage sandwiches Craig @@TweedyPubs

Hahaha thank you AFT! Yes the pubs channel does seem to have got off to a decent start. As I was discussing with WC21 Productions (UK) Ltd recently, to my surprise this is a bit of an under-served niche on RU-vid, there are some pub videos out there but it seems there isn't a huge amount focusing more on the sort of historic / characterful pubs I like. Fear not though I won't be abandoning the Outdoors channel! (Although I'm not sure the wine one has really found its feet yet...)

Really enjoying these. I felt that I’d seen you outside your old barber’s shop before - maybe on Tweedy Outdoors? Or perhaps it was a dream! The first Red Lion looked great and I do hope the construction works don’t alter the character of the passage. In the days when I went to London, I always held the view that the best pubs were up such passageways!

@@WC21UKProductionsLtd Yes indeed! There was an "Outdoors" video where I did a similar stroll around St. James's but didn't actually go into any pubs because it was the morning and they weren't open yet (it was more wine shopping focused). I completely agree, a pub being hidden down an alleyway is a very indicator it's going to be good!

Thanks JohnRob! Yes I agree "tour" sounds a bit more civilised than "crawl" but I certainly use the latter in some contexts. As a random aside I have encountered two other languages which have a fairly direct equivalent for pub crawl: "hashigo" in Japanese, which literally means something like "ladder"; and "giro d'ombra" in Italian (or possibly the Venetian dialect?) which literally means "journey through the shadows". The rationale being that wine in Venice was traditionally sold in shady spots (in the literal sense) to help keep it cool. I wish I could claim a more old fashioned system but recently I have been using Google Docs to write notes beforehand, which I can then read from my phone when out filming (and there's practically no chance I'd forget to take my phone). I probably spend more time doing the research than actually filming, even though I've already been to most of the pubs featured in these videos many times before... but I like to be as precise as reasonably possible about all the history mentioned. No doubt there are still mistakes, or things I just read and lazily accept without thoroughly scouring for evidence!

Hi . Interesting about the probable origins of pub crawl. Phones come in very handy for information as I think it would be very difficult to remember everything you present although I must say you give the appearance of doing it all from memory. I can imagine the research takes a lot of time and effort but the results make it all worthwhile as shown in the quality of your videos.@@TweedyPubs

Alas no I never found a good replacement. I had tried the other more famous St. James's / Mayfair barbers before Briggs (Geo F. Trumper / Truefit & Hill), years ago now, but I was a bit underwhelmed with both, especially given the prices involved. I also had a go with that new wave of trendy barbers like Murdock / Ruffians a few years back and they didn't really suit me either.

Yes, I had Trumper in mind for awhile - I'm sure its very good - & will probably try - but I feel you shouldnt perhaps need to go to the high end traditional. I like the idea of just walking around the corner to the local somewhat run down barbers but it still having the exterior & furniture on point. Like the barbers equivilent to E Pellicci or Bar Italia or many of the Pubs you've shown or Briggs! Maybe its a thing of the past. @@TweedyPubs

Holborn, without a doubt! My ideal pub crawl would be Ye Old Mitre, the Cittie of Yorke, the Seven Stars and possibly one or two others (Princess Louise?) depending on how I feel on the day. St. James's and Belgravia would probably be fighting it out for second place.

I had no idea about the St. James's connection with Freemasonry but a quick search on the web does suggest Henry Jermyn was a Grand Master, so I suppose the later associations may well stem from there! So many layers...

Ha, you might be interested in a book about the American variant of that tale: “Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon”

Really glad to hear you're enjoying the videos! Favourite beer of all time is a very hard question! It has a lot to do with the place and the occasion. Harvey's Sussex Best can be spectacular when in Sussex (or the Royal Oak in Borough) but elsewhere is not always at its best. Timothy Taylor's Landlord is also an old favourite but I worry it's becoming a bit too ubiquitous and consequently isn't always given the care it deserves either. One I yearn for is Hancock's HB, as served at the Cherry Tree in Tintern, sadly now long closed. That was just divine, but probably wouldn't be the same in another pub. Otter Bitter when in the right pub in Devon (the Cherub in Dartmouth springs to mind) can also be spectacular.

They all sound really good

I agree, I don't like music in pubs either - there just seems no need for it.