Well Worth a Pepys

Simon Stabler discovers a vintage inn that really did improve with age

- Simon Stabler

Hoping that it would aid sales of its famous antacid much in the way that the Shell Guides had done for oil and petrol 40 years earlier Alka-Seltzer manufacturer Miles Laboratories issued a series of regional pub guides in the mid-1970s. Among them was the Alka-Seltzer Guide to the Pubs of London, a 128-page time capsule from the days when pubs served the likes of Watney's Red Barrel and Whitbread Tankard, had a selection of sherries on draught, and in many cases offered little more than toasted sandwiches and hot pies for lunch.

It's books like this that show how much pubs have changed in a very short space of time, and while several of those listed have since closed down, plenty more, I am happy to stay, are still doing well. Among them is the Blackfriar, the Grade II* listed Arts & Craft decorated pub opposite Blackfriars station, and the nearby Samuel Pepys, a pub that I hadn't been aware of until picking up a copy of the guide in a charity shop.

Overlooking the River Thames, The Samuel Pepys was opened in 1968 at Brooks Wharf, a former bonded warehouse that held everything from tea, fruit and wine, to wool and furs. Designed to reflect the personal and professional aspects of Pepys's life, the downstairs Chandler's Bar was decorated to reflect his time as secretary of the Admiralty, while the upstairs restaurant reflected his life as a romantic with the tables set in curtained alcoves, inspired by fourposter beds.