7 St Andrews Hill,
London,
EC4V 5BY
0872 148 0548
The ViewLondon Review
The best London pubs seem to take 2 forms. Either they’re enormous beer halls with vaulted ceilings, or else they’re tiny, Lilliputian shoeboxes in which it’s impossible to plot a course through the other customers without recourse to complex navigation techniques.
The Cockpit, perhaps unsurprisingly, falls into the second category. However, its name hasn’t actually got anything to do with World War Two Spitfires or racing cars. It is instead the original meaning of the word that it refers to – namely cockfighting.
Until the middle of the 19th century it was the site of a very popular cockfighting location, which means it’s unlikely to become a place of pilgrimage for the animal rights brigade. Incidentally, I have a vegan relative who once bought a pig slaughtering bench thinking it was an antique table. I found that spectacularly funny.
If you aren’t offended by the fact the Cockpit was the site of some pretty full on chicken killing then I advise you to pop along, because it’s one of those pubs that you’ll be visiting for years afterwards. Not for any particular reason, other than it’s a nice place to waste time.
It is pretty small, and sports a decorative style that might be best described as 20th Century Curio-Traditionalism. For those of you unable to fathom what I’m talking about, imagine lots of beer jugs hanging from the ceiling and foreign banknote wallpaper.
It’s in the City, so evenings tend to be suit-heavy affairs. For full appreciation of the location and the interior I would (again) recommend arriving just after lunch, and preferably spending a few hours soaking up the atmosphere.
The Cockpit might have a chequered past, but then what would you say if I told you that the headquarters of Amnesty International was constructed on the foundations of a medieval dungeon? “You’re lying” hopefully, but you get the idea…
The Cockpit has been reviewed by 1 users