Whitechapel’s London Hospital Tavern: an oral history
The London Hospital Tavern recently turned 270. We talk to Kirk Slankard, the current general manager whose family has owned it for the last 25 years, about drunk doctors, Molotov cocktails and live snakes.
Kirk Slankard will be a familiar face to anyone who’s frequented the London Hospital Tavern (LHT) in the last few years. He’s been managing it since 2019, working behind the bar intermittently for over a decade, and hanging around the place since he was a child after his parents bought it in 2000.
In that time he’s built relationships with regulars, heard stories from people who have been coming to the pub for decades, been a sympathetic ear for overworked NHS staff, and pulled literally thousands of pints. As a publican and keen student of social history, few people know more about the LHT than Kirk.
For a pub that’s hosted gangster showdowns, sloshed surgeons and a ceiling to rival the Sistine Chapel in its storied past, the most unusual occupants were more recent.
‘My parents took it over in the year 2000 and decided to turn it into a live reptile bar. We had hollowed out columns through the building with lizards inside them. We had a burmese python in the stairwell. We had a 6 ft iguana by the ladies toilets.’
‘For a short time we had large goldfish bowls on the corners of the bar. But punters kept eating them.’
‘They would dare each other, and as a kid I remember someone betting a friend to swallow one. He picked it out, swallowed it, and vomited it straight back out into a pint glass. That’s not the sort of thing you forget. Dad got rid of the goldfish soon after.’
‘Eventually we had to get rid of all the animals. The RSPCA said that we had so many it was technically a zoo, and we’d need a zoo licence to keep them. We couldn’t afford one so they had to go. We contacted a guy who was like the English Steve Irwin – he came and took them away, and then would take them on educational tours around the country, to schools and events.’
‘My parents also decided to paint the exterior in tiger stripes – I’m sure some of your readers will remember! They took a lot of flak from locals, but as soon as they got rid of the stripes a few years later – around the same time they got rid of the reptiles – the same people were complaining it was gone! Maybe it had become iconic or something.’
Walking into the pub today, especially during the jolly buzz of people enjoying some after-work festive pints, it’s hard to imagine that you might earlier this century have been sharing the space with a reptile house to rival Whipsnade.
And as a bone fide proper East End boozer, the LHT has also seen its fair share of violence.
‘I remember dad telling me the first time he visited it, there were police posters everywhere appealing for information over an aggravated assault. There was a big police poster inside appealing for information, because the assault took place in the middle of the pub. People were just happily drinking around it, which I think reflects what it was probably like in the early 90s.’
The LHT is also one of many pubs in the area, notably including The Blind Beggar and what was formerly The Grave Maurice (now a betting shop) that was frequented by the Kray twins before they were locked up for murder in 1967.
‘My friend’s grandma tells me Ronnie Kray and his various boyfriends used to come in here all the time for the “gentleman’s singalongs”. This was before the days of karaoke and apparently they used to draw quite a crowd.’
‘It was also the scene of a major brawl between the Krays and a rival gang, the Cable Streeters – they were one of the many groups that fought Oswald Mosley’s fascists in 1936.’
‘We don’t really see much of that anymore today, fortunately. Although not long ago someone who we’d barred from drinking here did throw a Molotov cocktail in the stairwell,’ Kirk tells us without batting an eyelid.
Unsurprisingly, the history of the pub is closely intertwined with the hospital next door. It was originally built in 1752 as the Hospital Tavern, a pub for the builders building the hospital. It was moved to its current site in the 1800s due to the train line being built – even today, Kirk says when you’re in the cellar moving kegs, you can still feel overground trains passing below.
The first lease was granted to Sarah Parsons in 1753, the widow of Humphry Parsons, a former MP and successful brewer at the Red Lion Brewery in Aldgate. By January 1754, the London Hospital’s Building Committee was using the pub – the ground floor of which comprised a bar, a taproom and three parlours – for meetings.
By the 1820s the LHT was known for performances by proprietor and ‘low comedian’ E. Gilbert. Although he died in 1828, as a result of the collapse of the Royal Brunswick Theatre, music and entertainment featured into the 1830s.
The East London Railway Company purchased the pub and adjoining properties in 1866, as the railway was constructed below, and the building was cleared and rebuilt between 1875 and 1876. Interior partitions were removed to create one unified ground floor space in the mid-20th century – but sadly they were denied renewal of a music licence in 1966 as hospital patients were being disturbed by ‘the crushing beat of banjos and drums’.
Such disturbances are not a feature of the LHT’s current regular programming.
After it was built, it changed its name to London Hospital Tavern, and that’s how it has remained – ‘Although in the tiger stripe years, we did briefly trade under LHT Urban Bar.’
It’s been the main drinking house for doctors and hospital staff for a long, long time. ‘90% of our customer base is doctors and nurses – but I don’t think they’d be willing to tell you the sort of things they’ve got up to here!’
‘The current NHS staff still call it “the front office” – while The Good Samaritan is the back office. And they’ll ask each other after work – front office or back office? We were nearly given special dispensation to open for NHS staff during Covid, just so they had a non-workplace to decompress after horrendous shifts when the hospitals were overrun.’
This close relationship with the hospital is longstanding. ‘In the 1800s it had special meeting rooms specifically for doctors and hospital staff. There used to be a panel who would regularly meet here to decide hospital affairs. I suppose they do that sort of thing on site nowadays.’
‘When my parents took it over the function room was also used as a private members club for doctors – if a doctor was on call they’d be in the pub, with a pint, reading the newspaper. We had a red telephone that was a direct line to reception. So if they needed say, a spinal surgeon, they’d call, ask if Dr Smith was there, and he’d down his pint, fold his paper, reluctantly leave his armchair and head back to the hospital.’
‘We don’t have meeting rooms anymore. Nowadays we host things like karaoke, stand-up and storytelling up there,’ – which, if you’re a patient at the hospital, is probably quite reassuring.
‘We still get old-timers coming in who have some amazing stories about the pub in the past. A woman came in and told me that a previous manager, a long time ago, went shopping for classical paintings in Notting Hill so he could stick them up on the ceiling and create a sort of East End Sistine Chapel. I would have loved to see that.’
‘It’s a funny one – we seem to be disliked by people on the extremes. The real ale crowd don’t deem us enough of a ‘proper pub’, but we’re too much of a ‘proper pub’ for people who want more of a party atmosphere.’
‘But I think the people who do come here know what we’re about. We have a lot of local repeat customers who’ve been coming here for years (sometimes decades), lots of hospital staff and a surprisingly die hard community of sushi burrito fans.’
‘It’s a place with a lot of history, a proper community around it, and I love that my family is a part of that.’
Thanks to Kirk for taking the time to speak to us. Additional historical detail comes from the Survey of London.
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