3-053-464 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Four Swans, Bishopsgate-street, 1873. 'The tavern-life of Old London can now scarcely be traced, save in a few antiquarian records and pleasant gossip, ranging from Bishop Earle to Samuel Johnson. These thrones of human felicity, as our great lexicographer termed "tavern chairs," for ages lined the main thoroughfares of London, particularly the great leading roadway from High-street, Southwark, to the northern extremity of Bishopsgate...The Swan will be recollected as one of the most ancient among our signboards...the Four Swans, Bishopsgate [is] reputed to be the oldest galleried inn remaining in London...[and is also] perhaps, the most entire galleried inn which remains in the metropolis, and shows how well adapted were the inns of old for the representation of stage plays. In a gossiping volume, published in 1815, it is described as "the Four Swans, No. 83, Inn and Tavern, has good accommodation, principally for travellers." The Four Swans was closed in June last, and has since been taken down [ie demolished]. It contained much timber, some of the floors being three feet in thickness. Its latest appropriation was for railway traffic. Upon the site, we understand, will be erected chambers and warehouses'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.