London Pubs Group

Campaign for Real Ale

Campaign for Real Ale

Tipperary

66 Fleet Street
Temple
EC4Y 1HT

Like the Cheshire Cheese and the Seven Stars, this pub is not only a grade II listed building, it is also a Three Star pub on the Campaign for Real Ale’s (CAMRA) National Inventory with an interior of outstanding national historic importance, and the description is as follows: "The star turn here is the right hand wall featuring two original glass advertising panels.

Claimed as London’s first Irish pub, the Tipperary was taken over by Mooney’s of Dublin in 1895 who promptly demolished it and rebuilt the present establishment in the late 19th century under architect R L Cox. You can spot the Mooney’s lettering at the front doorstep with mosaic edging in the inner porch.

Shamrock-embellished mosaic flooring runs down the right-hand side of the room in a nod to the pub's Irish credentials. A fielded panelled bar counter with a linoleum inlaid top looks inter-war and is situated on the left but the line of the mosaic floor indicates the original bar stretched virtually to the inner doors, where the mosaic flooring is curved, and back to the rear door. The carved bar-back also appears to have run to the end of the room as there are remains of three bays there. Greene King had the pub in the 1960s and stated that they ‘refitted the interior to the style of Mooney’s days’ and added ‘all the panelling, fixtures and fittings have been retained’ and it is now difficult to determine what of the bar-back and counter are from the 1930s or are Greene King additions or adjustments from the 1960s.

What is definitely a survival of Mooney’s late Victorian interior is the full height dark panelling running along the right hand wall featuring a pair of magnificent glass panels advertising stout and whisky. They are signed ‘H West, Houghton Street, Strand, WC’. The upstairs bar is known as the Boar’s Head Bar after the original name of the pub which only acquired its present name after 1918 to commemorate the Great War song. There are no original fittings but there may be some from the 1930s."

The listing description is as follows: "Public house. Circa 1667, altered. Stuccoed brick. Roof not visible. 4 storeys plus attic. 2 bays. Early C20 pub front to ground floor. Square headed architraved windows. Cornices above ground, first and third floor windows. Interior retains early turned baluster staircase from second floor upwards."

The WhatPub link is here: WhatPub/Tipperary

The Pub Heritage Group link is here: PHG/Tipperary

The Tipperary featured on the Evening Crawl of EC4 and WC2 on 2 April 2003, the Evening Crawl of Blackfriars and Fleet St on 8 August 2007, and the Wig and Pen: Evening Pub Tour of Temple and Fleet Street on 4 December 2024.