Ludgate Cellars, Apothecary Street - Tinker Tailor Location

Regular visitors to this site might recall that back in the summer the 'Guinness is Smiley' team visited London to track down some of the filming locations featured in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley's People. You can read about our day out here.

One of the locations where we drew a blank was the wine bar where Smiley encounters Jerry Westerby. We had matched the exterior scenes to 'The Humble Grape' but the interior of the pub bore no resemblance to what was seen on screen. 

At the end of the article we asked for help to identify this location and I'm delighted to say we received it!

Laura Wright recently got in touch by email:

This was the Ludgate Cellars in Apothecary St, no longer there. I went there lunchtimes when clerking on Ludgate Hill in 1979. They sold pints of prawns, sadly no longer a feature of London pub lunchtimes. They also did meals and had that wonderful Good Wine Knows No Bush frieze and flagstone floor. A great place, but the whole area is now redeveloped. It was just south of a bombsite car park.

As you can see from the map below the location was not far away from Fleet Street and 'The Humble Grape' but I don't think we would have identified it without Laura's help.

Brian Vincett, who was the proprietor of Ludgate Cellars, is quoted in this article from the Whitbread Way in 1979 and you can see the front of the pub in episode one of the 1985 adaption of P D James's 'Cover Her Face' at the 1 minute 47 seconds mark.

Our thanks to Laura for crossing off another on our list of missing locations. Now if only there was someone out there who knows where we can find the Lexham Gardens Safe House! If you can help us with this or have information about any other locations featured in either series please drop us a line at guinnessissmiley@icloud.com