Boar's Head Inn, London

If you ever wondered where Shakespeare鈥檚 favorite party animal, Falstaff, liked to hang out, look no further than the Boar鈥檚 Head Inn on Eastcheap. In Henry IV, Part 1, it鈥檚 the ultimate medieval dive bar, a place for bad jokes, good ale, and even worse decisions. Now, small catch: historians will tell you the real Boar鈥檚 Head didn鈥檛 exist in the early 1400s, when the play is set. But in Shakespeare鈥檚 time, absolutely 鈥� it had been there since at least 1537, well established as a landmark before getting flamb茅ed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. (Don鈥檛 worry, they rebuilt it 鈥� Londoners weren鈥檛 about to let a good pub die.)

The inn carried on valiantly until the late 1700s, when it swapped beer for buttoned-up retail, and eventually the wrecking ball finished the job in 1831. But the legendary boar鈥檚 head sign survived and now lives proudly at Shakespeare鈥檚 Globe Theatre, because some things deserve a second act...

Today, the original site is swallowed up by the modern approach to London Bridge at Cannon Street. But just nearby on Eastcheap, a new tribute arose: in 1868, architect Robert Lewis Roumieu designed a neo-Gothic fever dream of a building 鈥� think flying brick gables and a boar鈥檚 head bursting out of a hedge. One architectural historian called it 鈥渙ne of the maddest displays of gabled Gothic brick in London," while another critic summed it up as 鈥渢he scream you wake on at the end of a nightmare.鈥�

In short: if Falstaff ever saw it, he鈥檇 probably order another round just to process it...

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Sight Name: Boar's Head Inn
Sight Location: London, England (See walking tours in London)
Sight Type: Attraction/Landmark
Guide(s) Containing This Sight:

Shakespeare's London Walking Tour

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