Pillar-box red windows and doors straight out of The Old Curiosity Shop alert Thames Path travellers to this haunted Dickensian hideaway. Originally built in 1615, it was here that Pepys
watched the Great Fire raze the City of London – his sad vantage point is now the pub’s canopied terrace overlooking the river. Today’s drinkers can quench their thirsts with ales from St. Austell,
Adnams and Greene King, as well as bottled beers from Europe and beyond, plus cocktails by the pitcher, wines, winter Pimm’s and sangria. Affordable pies, Korean-spiced chicken salad, mozzarella
and pesto veggie burgers, sandwiches, wraps, tapas platters, churros and ices are the things to order in a tavern that would still seem familiar to Doctor Johnson: the great London figure regularly
updated his diary in what is now the adjacent tearoom (named in his honour).