A Victorian pub frozen in time (as they all should be) This watercolour captures The Lamb on Lamb's Conduit Street, Bloomsbury, its dark green tiled facade and hanging flower baskets.
 
Built in the 1720s and refurbished in the Victorian era, the pub is Grade II listed and one of the few remaining in London with its original "snob screens". The screens are hinged frosted glass panels above the bar that allowed well-to-do Victorian drinkers to order a pint without being seen by staff or fellow patrons.
 
The three-sided bar counter, ringed by these screens, dates from the late Victorian or Edwardian period, supported by cast-iron columns with palmette capitals (just visible through the window). The pub takes its name from William Lamb, a Tudor merchant who repaired the Holborn Conduit in 1577, bringing fresh water to the area,  a legacy that gave both the pub and the street their name.
 
Charles Dickens, who lived nearby, is reputed to have frequented The Lamb, and poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath were regulars during the early days of their relationship, marrying at nearby St George the Martyr Church just four months after they met. A working polyphon, a 19th-century mechanical music machine still stands in the corner, alongside publicity photographs of Victorian stage stars Lilian Braithwaite and Seymour Hicks adorning the walls.
 
Interesting facts...
 
The snob screens are over 170 years old, dating from the pub's cider-house days before Young's took over in 1956, and were designed so Victorian gentlemen could drink without being seen by "women of dubious distinction".
The screens tilt open and closed, allowing staff to serve drinks through the window while preserving the drinker's privacy. The Lamb's polyphon, a Victorian mechanical jukebox, still works and would have provided the soundtrack to countless Victorian courtships.
 
Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath married at St George the Martyr Church just four months after meeting at The Lamb a whirlwind romance that began over pints in this very pub.
The pub's name honours William Lamb, a wealthy Tudor merchant who funded repairs to the Holborn Conduit in 1577, a water system later rebuilt by Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London. 
 
Location: 94 Lamb's Conduit Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3LE