Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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The location above is very rough. The L&M Companion describes it as being “on the corner of St Margaret’s Lane and the range of buildings fronting on New Palace Yard and running westwards from the Court of the Exchequer.”
There was also a nearby tavern called Heaven: http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/188.php
Apparently it’s just a natural name for a drinking establishment.
http://www.readio.com/archives/0105/14/zoomzone.html
The top, lefthand picture is the outside of the bar. According to the website:
“The next time someone tells you to go to Hell, you’ll know it’s at 59 Gansevoort Street in the Meat Packing District. It’s really a great trendy lounge with a cocktail menu.”
Justice from Hell
“Magistrates either heard cases and complaints in their houses, or as appears to be more frequently in towns and cities, a local tavern. The Westminster justices had their Quarterly Sessions at a place called Hell Tavern, until early in the 19th century when a court was built for them.”
Perhaps justice was dispensed there in Pepys’s time, too. This quotation probably refers to the same tavern (it was named “Hell” and located in Westminster), but the sentence is part of a review of a book concerning the 18th and 19th century, so maybe not.
To prove that it’s still a popular name …
This must be only a partial list:
Hell Bar, 157 1/2 E. Rosemary St.,
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Hell Bar, 2327 18th St., N.W.,
Washington, D.C.
Hell Bar (NOT “Pub”)
19 Hill St.
Edinburgh, Scotland
Hell Pub
Isle of Elba,
Italy
Blue Hell Bar
The only place where alcohol is served on Frederick Pohl’s fictional “Gateway,” an abandoned space station somewhere between Mercury and Venus.
Hell Bar in New York
It has it’s own website (takes a while to load): http://hell-bar.com
And on 18th St. NW in Washington, DC’s Adams Morgan neighborhood, in a converted rowhouse, a bar/club called Heaven upstairs, and in the basement a bar called Hell.