The Greene Man is a public house in London's

Euston Road Euston Road is a road in Central London that runs from Marylebone Road to King's Cross. The route is part of the London Inner Ring Road and forms part of the London congestion charge zone boundary. It is named after Euston Hall, the family ...

. It was formerly known as the Green Man (and Porters Bar) and before that, the Farthing Pie House or Pye House as

mutton pie A Scotch pie or mutton pie is a small, double-crust meat pie, traditionally filled with minced mutton but now generally beef, sometimes lamb. It may also be known as a shell pie or mince pie (although the latter term is ambiguous) to differe ...

s could be bought there for a farthing. When it was established in the 18th century, the area was rural and so the surroundings were farm fields and pleasure gardens. The place was then frequented by notable artists and writers including William Blake and Richard Wilson.

Farthing Pie House

There has been a tavern in this location for centuries. It was founded in 1708 as the Farthing Pie House or Pye House. This was a common name for a place where a

could be bought for a farthing. It was mentioned by Henry Carey in his prelude to his popular song, "Sally in our Alley", which was written around 1716. Carey explained the song's inspiration – a shoemaker's apprentice taking his sweetheart on a tour of London's sights which finished with "proceeding to the Farthing Pye-house, he gave her a Collation of Buns, Cheesecakes, Gammon of Bacon, Stuff’d-beef, and Bottled-ale;" Defoe's 1722 novel '' Colonel Jack'' also alludes to the tavern, when young Jack crosses London into a large field named after it. The most famous landlord in this period was Mr Price, who was known for his skill in making music by beating a

salt-box A salt cellar (also called a salt, salt-box and a salt pig) is an article of tableware for holding and dispensing salt. In British English, the term is normally used for what in North American English are called salt shakers. Salt cellars can be ...

with a rolling pin, accompanying musicians such as Carl Friedrich Abel, who played the violoncello. The tavern appears on Rocque's map of 1746 on the corner of the Green Lane with the East-West track which was later to become the New Road. The place then had a walled garden. Bilson's Farm is shown on the other side of the junction – a farm of 133

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

s which later became part of Regent's Park. There are no other buildings nearby as the area was not yet developed, the surroundings were still open fields, ponds and tracks. The area was described in the recollections of John Thomas Smith:

Green Man

The radical MP John Wilkes campaigned there for election to the Middlesex constituency as the suffrage was limited to wealthy freeholders who could be found there. At the end of the 18th century, it was frequented by William Blake as a young man. In 1809, it was renamed the Green Man. The Welsh painter Richard Wilson played skittles there. The pub is now owned by Greene King who changed the spelling of the sign to match their name, when they took over the Spirit Pub Company in 2015 and retired the Taylor Walker brewery brand. In 2019, the cheapest pie on the menu is Woodland Mushroom & Ale which costs £10.99. As there were 960 farthings in a

pound sterling Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and t ...

, the nominal price of a pie has risen by a factor of over 10,000. File:Farthing Pye House 1746.png, The Farthing Pye House next to Bilson's Farm on John Rocque's Map of London, 1746. File:Farthing Pie House 1780.png, The Farthing Pie House in 1780, painted in watercolour by Thomas H. Shepherd around 1850 from an old drawing File:Farthing Pie House.png, The Farthing Pie House in 1820, as shown in Walford's ''Old and New London'' File:Green Man 1830.png, Painted in 1830 by J. Breun, after it had been renamed the Green Man and the New Road had become built-up File:Greene Man.jpg, The Greene Man in 2019. Notice the green man sign for pedestrians in the traffic light.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Green Man Pubs in the London Borough of Camden