Stop 2 of 8
A minute's walk from the Fitzroy Tavern, and the second pillar of the Fitzrovia circuit. Dylan Thomas met his future wife Caitlin Macnamara here in April 1936 — Augustus John, who was seeing Caitlin at the time, made the introduction, which tells you something about the social dynamics. Julian Maclaren-Ross held court at the bar in his trademark teddy-bear overcoat and silver-knobbed cane; he became the model for X. Trapnell in Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. Orwell drank here too, and is said to have thrown up over the bar. Anthony Burgess was a regular. The Wheatsheaf writers were a recognised group for a while — Orwell, Thomas, Edwin Muir, Humphrey Jennings. Now it's a Nicholson's pub, well kept, and quieter than it deserves.