Prouder than Proud

It's a very small club. The 193-years-old club.

Prouder than Proud

It's a very small club. The 193-years-old club.

Prouder than Proud

It's a very small club. The 193-years-old club.

Prouder than Proud

It's a very small club. The 193-years-old club.

OUR HERITAGE

Since buying a brewery and 82 London pubs in 1831, we have been an independent family business. Not only in the strictest sense because someone with the surname Young has always been part of the team, but as a big, happy (and constantly growing) hospitality family.

The brewery was a hive of industry and eccentricity. Oceans of beer left its gates in carts pulled by Shire horses and, eventually, lorries when lorries were invented. And the pubs have always been proper ones. Refreshing Londoners at first but steadily radiating outwards since 2010. All that’s gone before makes us all we are today.

OUR FUNNIEST STORIES (SO FAR)

There was almost an elephant in the family

The power of elephants was something John Young witnessed firsthand when serving in Ceylon in WWII. He was a fighter pilot in the Fleet Air Arm (the Royal Navy’s air division), and thanks to monsoons, the jets would get stuck in the mud of the makeshift runways. Locals and their elephants would save the day by pulling the aircraft out of the mud.

Fast forward to John Young’s time as our Chairman and his thought that one elephant could do the job of six Dray horses (which would be very efficient indeed). He set about finding an elephant to join the family. And he found one in the UK called Elizabeth. He was in the process of buying her when an elephant expert pointed out that an elephant’s feet would not be comfortable on frosty ground. That put an end to that (he was an animal lover, after all). But it still stands that the stables at the brewery almost had to get bigger doors.

We had an unofficial city farm

From post-WWII to the day we shut our Wandsworth brewery in 2006, the stables became a sort of unofficial city farm. It started with the families of Young’s coming in to see the animals on a Sunday. And then it grew into visits from what must have been every Wandsworth local. It’s clear to see why this happened – it was some menagerie. There were Shire horses, donkeys, RamRod D’Arcy (our Dorset Horn ram), a flock of geese, peacocks, cats, ducks, chickens, guineafowls – all being treated like royalty and making Sundays in Wandsworth the best day of the week.

A swift pint for Swift

The Bull & Gate in London’s Kentish town is no stranger to hosting future stars. Being the hallowed music venue it is, it has seen the likes of Coldplay and Nirvana play there in their young-and-up-and-coming days.

But back in October 2017, a megastar – none other than Taylor Swift – filmed part of her End Game video at the pub. Ed Sheeran was there, too. And so was Taylor’s Dad. Apparently, he loved the Guinness. Cheers, Mr Swift.

An interesting way in

Our Chairman, John Young, always up to mischief, conned his way into 10 Downing Street by masquerading as a waiter. He had always wanted to see what it was like inside, and this was his fun way of doing it. He poured drinks for the Prime Minister of the time, Margaret Thatcher, and her guests. He prepared snacks (prunes in bacon, which were fashionable in 1983). He carried big baths of ice up many flights of stairs. He had already been awarded a CBE at this stage, and some of the guests actually knew him in his Chairman of Young’s capacity, but not a soul recognised him out of context.