FAMOUS LONDON TAVERN DISAPPEARS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2668, 13 January 1916, Page 3

FAMOUS LONDON TAVERN DISAPPEARS

"WHEN WIT AND BEAUTY DINED IN CHANGE ALLEY." One by one London's old cherished City associations are vanishing under the pick of the fully-licensed housebreaker. Thero are very few taverns of the pewter pot and the backed settee left now, alive with the ghosts of the Isce-and-riiffle age, sentimentally sti'jwn with sawdust, but always sure to. provide you with the best chops and tomato sauce flanked by foaming tankards. The last to go is Baker's memorial chop-house in Change Alley, which is coming down presently for an extension of Martin's Bank. "Baker's'' was always the best—the very best, ft was built, so they say, soon after tho Great Fire, when they ate and drank heartily of juicy things. Its never-failing prosperity reached the summit at the time of the South Sea .Bubble, when Change Alley was tho centre of an excited throng all furiously engaged in making their fortunes, and where

; The greatest ladies thither came I r> pl'scl in chariots daily, > Or pawned their jewels for a Bum io venture in Change Alley. And dining at, "Baker's" at (as usual) some other mighty personage's expense, ; bwift wrote, on the back of the hill: Here is the gulf where thousands fell, Here all the bold adventurers camo. narrow sound, though deep as hell— Change Alley is the dreadful name. r3' if Ki 6a /' Ar *> uthn o fc , all the rest of that wonderful literary coterie used to dine at well, and j c " a ' red . home after a "very full and comforting. evening both wine and wit bubbling, as the author of the Beggar s Opera" wrote. "And best Act n °i. 111 the Morning!" After this golden age of port and plenitude had passed and the South Sea Bubble burst, the "Charleys" and their boxes a nd all the rest cf it had gone, Baker s still drew the crowd, though it was a different crowd. It was the rallying place of wits, aldermen, financiers, plump merchants and pumper. parsons. All manner of schemes were hatched there under the inspiration of the crusted bottleschemes of wealth-making, of placemaking, of love, of robbery, of adventure, and even their salvation. It was rrom Baker s—then known, by the wav, KrJ 311 circular of the L.M.S. Avas issued, and nobody objected to place of its birth. Baker' 'Mike Garraway's near by was farnot.'. for its stately waiters, who spoke m whispers as they moved silently around . with the dishes and who served you as though you were some great potentate. No one ever thought of over indulging himself there: did 1 no shown the least sign of tipsiness the shocked eye of the servitor froze him into immediate sobriety. It is caid that 110 women ever entered the place This exclusiveness was as much cherished as its unrivalled brands of pori and sherry and the juiciest chous in creation.