Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, Fleet Street

Published 9 November 2026 · By the Guide to London editorial team · Editor: Terje Moy

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, at 145 Fleet Street, is a tavern rebuilt soon after the Great Fire of 1666, not a medieval one: the sign by the door says "Rebuilt 1667", and Historic England dates the building to the late seventeenth century, "very much altered" since. Its fame rests on a warren of small panelled rooms on several floors, a vaulted cellar, and a long association with Samuel Johnson that no record from his lifetime supports.

None of that makes it less worth seeing. Two dark rooms either side of the entrance passage are about as close as London comes to the feel of an old eating house, with bare boards, bench seats and big fireplaces. What a visitor needs to know is which parts are old, which were added in the 1990s, how to find the door, and what the Johnson story really rests on.

Our overview of London's historic pubs puts the Cheshire Cheese beside the other old taverns, and our page on Dr Johnson's House covers the house round the corner where he compiled his Dictionary. This page is about the pub alone.

Finding the door in Wine Office Court

The Fleet Street frontage is easy to miss because the pub does not open onto it. Walk along the north side of Fleet Street between Fetter Lane and Shoe Lane and look for a narrow covered passage with the pub's sign beside it. That is Wine Office Court, and the pub's door is a few steps into the alley.

The list entry describes the alley side as four storeys of yellow brick with red arches, mostly of the mid to late eighteenth century, with old continuous glazing on the ground floor and a doorway with an elliptical fanlight above it. The Fleet Street front, of yellow brick, is probably late eighteenth century and was raised and remodelled in the nineteenth. Look for the screens behind the windows lettered "OCC", for Old Cheshire Cheese.

1667, and what "rebuilt" means

The Great Fire burned along Fleet Street in September 1666 and stopped a little to the west of here. Almost everything on this stretch was rebuilt in the years after, on the old plots and often on the old cellars. The pub's own claim is that a tavern stood on the site before the Fire and was rebuilt in 1667. Historic England does not give a year; its entry says late seventeenth century, much altered, and records a late seventeenth-century vaulted cellar beneath a small courtyard.

Claims that the cellars are much older, even medieval, are common in guidebooks and on the pub's walls. The statutory record does not support them, so we do not repeat them as fact. For the Fire itself and how far it spread, see our page on the Monument.

The "Ye Olde" in the name tells you little about the date either. The spelling is an old-fashioned way of writing "the", and pubs took it up enthusiastically in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to sound ancient. Our page on pub names and signs explains where it came from.

The two old rooms by the entrance

CAMRA, whose National Inventory puts this interior in its top, three-star category, is clear about what matters here: the pair of rooms either side of the entrance passage.

On the right is a small bar with very old wall panelling, which CAMRA thinks may be original to the rebuilding, plain fixed benches, a huge fireplace and a counter that is probably Victorian. Over the door a painted notice from less equal days reads "Gentlemen only served in this bar". Beside the hatch is the lettering "Waiter service".

The waiters served the room on the left, the Chop Room: a panelled eating room with wall benches, an old marble fireplace and, just inside the door, a cosy corner of benches round a table with curtains that can be drawn for privacy. A tiny pewter-lined sink with a working tap stands next to the hatch. In the bar, the passage and the Chop Room, sawdust is still spread on the bare floorboards every day, according to CAMRA, one of the last pubs to keep the custom.

Upstairs and downstairs: the warren, old and new

Most of the Cheshire Cheese's maze is more recent than it looks. Until 1992, CAMRA records, the pub had four rooms on three floors plus a small bar in the cellars. Samuel Smith then extended it eastwards into the neighbouring building to designs by the architects Waterhouse and Ripley, adding a new ground-floor bar, a first-floor bar made from former offices, and second halves to the upper rooms, making at least nine drinking areas in all.

• The Williams Room, first floor, with a figure "3" over the door: 1930s panelling and an old fireback, used for functions.
• The Johnson Room, second floor: more 1930s panelling and high-backed seats in bays, the old "traps", numbered 1, 2 and 3 on their ends. It serves as an overflow restaurant at lunchtime.
• The cellars: a small room with a replacement flagstone floor, a narrow barrel-vaulted passage like a wine cellar, and on a lower level a large room with a three-bay vaulted ceiling. Its bar fittings were added in 1992.

In each of the upper rooms a doorway leads into a second half created in 1992, with panelling copied from the 1930s originals. If a room feels newer once you step through a doorway, that is why.

Johnson, Boswell and the missing tavern

Samuel Johnson lived in the 1750s at 17 Gough Square, leaving in 1759, and the house is about a minute's walk north up Wine Office Court. He later lived at Johnson's Court and Bolt Court, both off this side of Fleet Street. He was one of the great tavern talkers of his age. It is natural to assume that he drank at the Cheshire Cheese, and many writers since the nineteenth century have said so.

There is no evidence from his lifetime that he did. James Boswell's Life of Johnson, the record of his conversation over twenty years, names his favourite tavern as the Mitre in Fleet Street, a separate house, long since gone, and in the six volumes of George Birkbeck Hill's edition the Cheshire Cheese does not appear at all. We searched the full text in November 2026. The nearest the book comes is a footnote about Wine Office Court itself: Bishop Percy recalled taking Johnson to supper at Oliver Goldsmith's lodgings in the court on 31 May 1761.

So Johnson certainly walked down this alley, and he very probably knew the house. Whether he ever sat in it is a later tradition, and anything inside the pub that connects him with it belongs to that tradition rather than to the historical record.

When to go, and what it costs

The pub's fame works against it in the evening. CAMRA's own advice is to visit at a quieter time such as mid-afternoon, and on weekdays between about 14:30 and 16:30 you have the best chance of finding the two old rooms half empty. After about 17:00 the office crowd arrives. That timing is our observation, not a published figure.

It opens every day of the week, which not every pub in this office district does, which makes a weekend afternoon a good alternative. Food is served at lunchtime and in the early evening; the CAMRA listing in November 2026 gave 12:00 to 14:30 and 18:00 to 21:00 on weekdays. Samuel Smith sells its own beers and spirits rather than national brands, and its drinks tend to cost less than its neighbours'; our page on what a pint costs in London explains the range.

Getting there and what is nearby

Chancery Lane station, on the Central line, is about eight minutes' walk north-west, but it has no lifts. City Thameslink and Blackfriars, both with lifts, are each about seven to ten minutes away. From Blackfriars, walk up New Bridge Street and turn left into Fleet Street; the alley is on the right after about five minutes. Many buses run along Fleet Street.

The Cheshire Cheese sits in the middle of a short walk worth doing on its own. St Bride's and the churches of Fleet Street are a few minutes east, the City boundary at Temple Bar ten minutes west, and the Inns of Court beyond it. Our historic pub walks link it to the Black Friar at one end and the Seven Stars at the other; for that pub and the lawyers' quarter, see the Seven Stars and Legal London.

Frequently asked questions

How old is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese?

The building dates from the late seventeenth century, after the Great Fire of 1666; the pub's sign says it was rebuilt in 1667. Historic England describes it as much altered, and much of the present maze of rooms dates from an extension in 1991 and 1992. A tavern stood on the site before the Fire, according to the pub.

Did Dr Johnson drink at the Cheshire Cheese?

There is no record from his lifetime that he did. Boswell's Life of Johnson names the Mitre as his usual tavern in Fleet Street and never mentions the Cheshire Cheese. Johnson lived a minute away in Gough Square and certainly visited Wine Office Court, so the tradition is plausible but unproven.

Is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese open at weekends?

Yes. CAMRA's listing in November 2026 gave 12:00 to 23:00 on Saturday and 12:00 to 22:30 on Sunday. Not every pub in this office district does, because most of their customers are office workers.

Is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese accessible for wheelchair users?

Only in part. The two original rooms by the entrance are on the ground floor, but every other room, the cellars and the toilets are reached by narrow stairs, and there is no lift. Ask the staff about the entrance step before you go.

Sources

• Historic England - Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Public House, 145 Fleet Street, list entry 1064662, Grade II (checked November 2026)
• CAMRA - Olde Cheshire Cheese, London: National Inventory description and opening times (checked November 2026)
• Project Gutenberg - Boswell's Life of Johnson, edited by George Birkbeck Hill, volume 1 (volumes 1 to 6 searched) (checked November 2026)
• Food Standards Agency - food hygiene rating for Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, 145 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2BU (checked November 2026)