Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is an old public house in the City of London, England, located just off Fleet Street, on Wine Office Court.
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is one of a number of pubs in London to have been rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire of 1666. There has been a pub at this location since 1538, While there are several older pubs which have survived because they were beyond the reach of the fire, or like the Tipperary on the opposite side of Fleet Street because they were made of stone, this pub continues to attract interest due to the curious lack of natural lighting inside which generates its own gloomy charm.
Some of the interior wood panelling is nineteenth century, some older, perhaps original. The vaulted cellars are thought to belong to a 13th century Carmelite Monastery which once occupied the site. The entrance to this London pub is situated in a narrow alleyway and is very unassuming, yet once inside visitors will realise that the pub occupies a lot of floor space and has numerous bars and gloomy rooms. In winter an open fireplace is used to keep the punters warm.
In the bar room are posted plaques showing famous people who were regulars. The pub is also the place where the FDC, a society formed by pupils of Culford School, a public school in Suffolk, first met in the 1930's. This society is a closed group, open only to male prefects who are invited and initiated. The pub is currently operated by and tied to the Samuel Smith Brewery.
All the monarchs who have reigned in England during the pub's time are written to the right of the door.
There are several famous literary figures associated with the place. Oliver Goldsmith, Mark Twain, Alfred Tennyson and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as Dr Samuel Johnson are all said to have been 'regulars'. However, there is no recorded evidence that Dr Johnson ever visited the pub, only that he lived close by.
Charles Dickens had been known to use the establishment frequently, and due to the pub's gloomy charm it is easy to imagine that Dickens modelled some of his darker characters there. The Cheshire Cheese Pub is famously referred to in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities: following Charles Darnay's acquittal on charges of high treason, Sydney Carton invites him to dine "drawing his arms through his own" Sydney leads him to Fleet Street "up a covered way, into a tavern ... where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good plain dinner and a good wine".
