London's Covent Garden Historic Pub Tour

We start where proper London drinking starts — The Harp, a narrow, mirror-lined boozer that's been voted CAMRA Pub of the Year more times than most pubs manage in a lifetime. On a good evening the crowd spills out onto Chandos Place, pint in hand, and you're straight into the real thing.

This is where your guide breaks down what most visitors never learn: the difference between cask and keg, ale and lager, hand pump and cellar. You'll taste your way through a rotating line-up of guest ales and finally understand why the British get so serious about a well-kept pint.

It's the perfect first stop — equal parts pub-school and warm welcome — and it sets the tone for everything that follows.

Next is The Salisbury, and the moment you step inside you'll see why it's earned its name — a glittering interior of cut glass, polished brass and stage-worthy flair, right in the beating heart of theatreland.

This has long been the actors' pub, ringed by West End stages, and your guide serves up the backstage gossip and green-room legends that come with it. It's also where you'll be poured a pint of Timothy Taylor's Landlord that many regulars call one of the best in Britain.

Settle in, look up at those ceilings, and soak up a room where generations of performers have raised a glass before curtain-up.

This is picked consistently as it's guests' favorite pub on the tour!

Between pints, we wander through Covent Garden itself — the beating heart of London's street-performance scene and a haven for the musicians, magicians and mime artists working the crowds beneath the old market roof.

Your guide walks you through centuries of theatre and street magic, from its days as the city's fruit-and-veg market to the buskers who still audition for their pitch here today. Keep your eyes open — the entertainment is free and everywhere you look.

It's a breath of open air and spectacle before the final pint, and a reminder of how much history is packed into these few streets.

Tucked away down a narrow passage off Covent Garden, the Lamb & Flag feels like a survivor from another London. A pub was first recorded on this site in 1772, when it was known as the Coopers Arms, before taking its present name in 1833.

In the early 19th century, bare-knuckle prize fights earned it the blood-curdling nickname “The Bucket of Blood,” while novelist Charles Dickens later became a regular. The surrounding alleys have an equally colourful history: in 1679, celebrated poet John Dryden was ambushed and badly beaten nearby by hired thugs.

Today, this Grade II-listed pub offers a far warmer welcome—and the chance to enjoy a drink in one of Covent Garden’s most atmospheric historic corners.

The tour concludes at the Coal Hole, a richly atmospheric pub beside the Savoy on London’s famous Strand. Its name comes with two competing stories: some say the space was once a coal cellar for the Savoy Hotel, while others link it to the coal heavers who worked beside the nearby Thames.

The present Grade II-listed pub forms part of the Savoy Court complex, built in 1903–04, and retains a wonderfully theatrical interior of dark wood, lofty beams, decorative friezes and an elaborate fireplace.

Its character recalls the Strand’s Victorian “song and supper” clubs, where comic songs, sentimental ballads and lively performances entertained the crowds.

Surrounded by some of London’s greatest theatres, it is a fitting place to finish the tour—and perhaps remain for another drink.