JWB on 28 Dec 2008  •  Link

"While there may at times be good reason for doubting the claims made
as to the antiquity of some London taverns, there can be none for
questioning the ripe old age to which the Pope's Head in Cornhill
attained. This is one of the few taverns which Stow deals with at
length. He describes it as being "strongly built of stone," and
favours the opinion that it was at one time the palace of King John.
He tells, too, how in his day wine was sold there at a penny the
pint and bread provided free. It was destroyed in the Great Fire,
but rebuilt shortly after. Pepys knew both the old and the new
house. In the former he is said to have drunk his first "dish of
tea," and he certainly enjoyed many a meal under its roof, notably
on that occasion when, with Sir W. Penn and Mrs. Pepys, he "eat
cakes and other fine things." '

"Inns and Taverns of Old London" by Henry C. Shelley

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/ete…

JWB on 28 Dec 2008  •  Link

The John Stow referred to above by Henry Shelley is the author of "A Survey of London", 1603, which can be found here:

http://books.google.com/books?hl=…

Bill on 14 Jan 2015  •  Link

Pope's Head Alley, a footway from Cornhill—opposite the southwest corner of the Royal Exchange—to Lombard Street, and so called from the Pope's Head Tavern ... Early in the 17th century Pope's Head Alley was noted for its booksellers' shops. The History of the Two Maids of More-Clacke, 1609, was "printed by N. O. for Thomas Archer, and is to be sold at his shop in Pope's Head Pallace," perhaps a part of the large edifice mentioned by Stow. The first edition of Speed's Great Britain (fol. 1611) was "sold by John Sudbury and George Humble, in Pope's Head Alley, at the signe of the White Horse." Sudbury and Humble were the first printsellers established in London.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.