Results tagged “The Grapes”

"I heard one of those tourist boats going past one day say, 'on the left hand side is the pub where Charles Dickens wrote some of his famous plays and that house on the left, painted pink, that belongs to Julian Clary. Well, one queen's much like another for them I suppose.They've gone back to saying that's Gandalf's house now. I wish they wouldn't, but what can you do?"

A man was arrested following a suspected arson at an address yards away from Ian McKellen's pub The Grapes.

The police and fire brigade were called to Barleycorn Way in Poplar at 5am on Tuesday morning after reports a fire had started. The property was evacuated and no injuries were reported.

The Grapes in Limehouse will not be transformed into an establishment for luvvies or a gay bar following its takeover by Sir Ian McKellan and his two business partners.

Speaking at the media launch of the venue last night, Sir Ian said he wanted to reassure the regulars that the pub would remain much the same as it always had.

Hollywood actor and Limehouse resident Sir Ian McKellen has long harboured an ambition to open a little tea shop.

This month, in partnership with his old friend the theatre director Sean Mathias and Evening Standard chairman and one-time owner of Sake No Hana Evgeny Lebedev, he took over historic pub The Grapes in Narrow Street instead.

Click here for factfiles of the local haunts in the 2010 Good Beer Guide

If you're a real ale lover, this particular stretch of the Thames hasn't always been seen as a beacon of pint-related pleasure.

Aside from the Grapes in Limehouse and the North Pole in Manilla Street, the E14 postcode is often no more than a footnote in Camra's extensive Good Beer Guides.