The Red Lion, London

The Red Lion

Portland stone, granite and slate

c. 1890

48 Parliament Street, London SW1

The site was once occupied by a medieval tavern, but by Victorian times the pub here had acquired its present name. The young Charles Dickens was one of its "regulars" before it was rebuilt in this Flemish-Baroque style — hence his relief portrait in the roundel on the exterior, over the second floor windows. The ground floor "retains unaltered public house frontage with basket handle arched bar windows and corner entrance under deep entablature-fascia," while the pub interior "retains most of original fittings" (listing text). [Mouse over the text for links. Commentary continues below.]

Photograph by Robert Freidus, text by Jacqueline Banerjee, and formatting by George P. Landow

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one. Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Robert Allbut's entry for the pub runs:

"The Red Lion" (No. 48). This place may be specially noted as the house at which young David Copperfield gave his "magnificent order" for a glass of the "Genuine Stunning" and where the landlord's wife gave him back the money and a kiss besides. This was an actual experience in the boyhood of Dickens, and is referred to in Mr. Forster's Biography, where the house is indicated as above. [80]

Allbut concludes his description by saying that the pub was now (at the time of writing) being "rebuilt and modernised" (80), which would have been when the roundel and other architectural sculpture appeared. The pub is not mentioned by name in David Copperfield (see Ch. XI); but Forster does indeed trace the episode there to one that took place in "a public house in Parliament-street, which is still there though altered, at the corner of the short street [Derby Gate] leading into Cannon-row" (I: 43). This identifies it very precisely.

The pub's own website adds, "Standing so close to Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament, The Red Lion also became a popular haunt for British Prime Ministers. Indeed, the pub served every British Prime Minister up until Edward Heath in the 1970s...."

Related Material

Close-ups of the sculpture on the façade

My magnificent order at the public-house" — illustration by Phiz

Bibliography

Allbut, Robert. Rambles in Dickens' Land. London: S. T. Freemantle, 1899. Internet Archive. Contributed by Harvard University. Web. 18 April 2019.

Forster, John. The Life of Charles Dickens Vol. 1: 1812-1842. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Google Books Free Ebook. Web. 18 April 2019.

"History." The Red Lion. Web. 18 April 2019.

"Red Lion Public House." Historic England. Web. 18 April 2019.

Last modified 18 April 2019