Like the George IV and the Marquis Cornwallis, this pub is not a listed building but it has a very nice carved wooden fire surround and ornate plaster cornices. One of the door entrances has a mosaic saying “KINGS ARMS”. The windows have “Kings Arms” in Charrington’s livery. Note also the elegant wooden staircase. The pub was established by 1756 and rebuilt in 1826 by CH Webster, Hoare, then from 1933 Charrington, from 1967 Bass Charrington, from 1998 Punch, by the late 2010s Punch Partnerships, and from 2017 it was sold in the large package to Star. It was the Kings Arms until it changed hands in 2011, renamed after an interwar literary hostess and patron who lived nearby and operated by Noble Inns, then from 2014 Truffle Hunting/Affinity Bars & Restaurants, and from February 2018 it has been run by Market Taverns as a gastropub. It was the local Campaign for Real Ale’s (CAMRA) Pub of the Season in Spring 2003. It is a four-storey, two-tone brick corner building, with a curved corner, nice dark wood ground floor frontage and window frames. It has a medium-sized rectangular interior along the front, with a front-facing bar. It has a cream ceiling and shallow cross-beams showing traces of the five earlier subdivisions, lots of cream plasterwork cornices and trims, cream picture rail, and cream Anaglypta walls. There is cream-painted wooden panelling on the dado and under the windows, and a corner porch on the left in dark wood with some nice fancy little bits of etched frosted glass overhead. The other door is in the cut-off corner with a draught curtain, dark wood panelling under the asymmetrically staple-shaped bar counter. The new bar-back consists of a mirrored dark wood cabinet and black and white floor tiles. There are two dining rooms upstairs.

The Lady Ottoline features on the A Hoare-ing We Shall Go: Evening Crawl of Hoare & Co Pubs on 21 August 2019.

The WhatPub link is here: WhatPub/Lady Ottoline