South Bank Pub Crawl
View CrawlStop 4 of 9
A pub has stood on this site since the early 1600s, when Bankside was London's red-light entertainment district — theatres, bear pits, and brothels packed in shoulder to shoulder. The Anchor Bankside was the tap room for the Anchor Brewery, established in 1616. Samuel Pepys watched the Great Fire from a tavern here on 2 September 1666. Dr Samuel Johnson was a regular, drinking with Joshua Reynolds and Oliver Goldsmith as guests of the Thrale family who owned the brewery. The current building dates from 1822. Shakespeare's Globe is next door. It gets rammed on weekends — try to time it right.