Newman Arms

After a period of closure for building works to be carried out, this site reopened in May 2018 under Truman's Brewery management, as their first Tap House in London. Truman’s have expanded the pub into the basement and increased the number of draught lines, to offer customers a wider range of beers. This is one of the first pubs in London to install a ‘crowler machine’ to fill 910ml (a pint and a half) cans with any draught beer on site for customers to take away. up to 4 cask ales plus 12 keg beers. Named after the local landowner William Berners, whose country seat was Newman Hall in Quendon, Essex, it's a small, narrow and cosy low-ceilinged pub, with a proper flagstone floor. The building dates from the 1720s and is thought to have once been a blacksmith, candle-maker's, picture framer's and brothel before being licensed as a beer house in 1863. It later became a favourite of George Orwell and the pub is believed to have been the model for the "Proles' Arms" in Orwell's dystopian novel "1984", the pub in which Winston Smith tries and fails to find out about life before the revolution. The basement snug names now give a nod to the famous book; with a dual purpose as a training facility for Truman's staff. Note the almost Dickensian covered alleyway to the left, once unlit and nicknamed Murderer's Alley. It is a surviving fragment of a fringe of the St. Giles' Rookery, once the most famous slum area in London. A beer-only licence lasted until 1948 when wine was licenced to be sold, and finally a spirits licence was granted in 1960. At date of this entry post-pandemic the venue does not offer food, but hopes to do so when footfall returns.