Standing Bar Near Me in Holborn: Ye Olde Mitre Barrel-Table Alley

Ye Olde Mitre at 1 Ely Court, Ely Place, London EC1N 6SJ, is closed every Sunday and pours seven real ales the rest of the week from a tavern most people walk straight past. For anyone hunting a standing bar near me around Hatton Garden or Chancery Lane, the draw is outside the door: a narrow paved alley where drinkers rest their pints on old upturned barrels instead of tables, then duck inside a Grade II listed room when it rains.

The first job is simply getting there. Ely Court is a slim passage running between Ely Place and Hatton Garden, and the London blog The Unfinished City describes it as split down the middle by an iron bar, there to stop cyclists using it as a shortcut. Coming from Chancery Lane station, walk along Holborn towards Holborn Circus and turn into Ely Place. The alley opens off it partway along, and it is narrow enough that many first-timers walk past and have to double back.

From the Hatton Garden side, the entrance sits between jewellers' shopfronts and is even easier to miss. The courtyard at the end is the reason people come: old barrels stand upright in a small courtyard, flower baskets hang from the walls, and on a dry evening this is where most of the drinking happens, on your feet. Treat each barrel as a shared table. Nobody owns one, and squeezing in beside strangers is normal.

The pub's own history page dates the first Mitre to 1546, built for the servants of the Bishops of Ely, whose London palace stood on this land. Historic England's listing is more precise about the current building, putting it at around 1773 with an internal remodelling in the early 20th century. The Unfinished City adds that it went up a year after Ely Palace was demolished, with extensions in 1782.

Two stories get retold at the bar. The first is the cherry tree: the pub says Queen Elizabeth I once danced around it with Sir Christopher Hatton, and the preserved trunk now supports the front of the building. The second is jurisdiction. Because the land belonged to the Bishops of Ely, the pub counted as part of Cambridgeshire, and licensees had to travel to Cambridge for their licence, an arrangement The Unfinished City says lasted until the 1960s.

The bar runs seven real ales on hand-pull, and the pub promises at least three of them will be guest ales brought in from breweries across the country, alongside a real scrumpy cider. The rest of the list is Fuller's. With seven pumps rather than ten, the board changes noticeably within a week, so regulars tend to ask what has just gone on before ordering their usual.

Food is deliberately simple. Ye Olde Mitre is known for home-made bar snacks and proudly does not serve chips. The kitchen pushes toasties instead, served from noon until 9:30pm Monday to Friday and from noon to 4pm on Saturday. Honest call: a toastie and a pint at a barrel is the right order here, while anyone wanting a sit-down meal should eat first in Hatton Garden or Clerkenwell and come for the beer afterwards.

Indoors the pub is tiny and wood-panelled, with a main bar, a separate snug and a room upstairs. CAMRA lists the interior on its National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors, and the pub has appeared in the Good Beer Guide from 2004 to 2019 and the Good Pub Guide from 1982 to 2018. The Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood named it London pub of the year in 2013 and again in 2019.

There is a real fire for winter, board games behind the bar, a covered smoking area, and air conditioning for the summer crowd that cannot fit outside. The upstairs room is available for private events, from business meetings to birthday drinks. Tables inside can also be booked online, but the barrels outside are strictly first come.

Opening hours are 11am to 11pm Monday to Friday and 11am to 9pm on Saturday, with no Sunday opening at all. That Saturday close is earlier than most central London pubs, so a weekend visit works best as an afternoon pint rather than a night out. The quietest window is right after opening on a weekday, when you can choose a barrel, read the guest pump clips properly and talk to the team before the lunch trade arrives.

House rules are the usual Fuller's ones: order at the bar, and assistance dogs are welcome. Ely Place has been run by its own body of commissioners since an 1842 Act of Parliament, and it is a quiet residential and office street, so keep noise down when you leave late. The pub's manager is Judith, and the team behind the bar are used to first-time visitors who arrive slightly amazed that they found it at all.

Before or after your pint, step a few doors along Ely Place to St Etheldreda's, the former private chapel of the Bishops of Ely and one of two buildings in London surviving from the reign of Edward I. Its 13th-century crypt came through wartime bombing almost unscathed. Shakespeare even mentions the strawberries from the bishops' Holborn garden in Richard III, and the church still holds a Strawberry Fayre every June.

Hatton Garden, the diamond and jewellery street named after the same Christopher Hatton in the cherry-tree story, runs parallel and is worth a slow walk while the shop windows are lit. Smithfield, where the pub's history page notes William Wallace was executed, is ten minutes north-east, and Farringdon station on the Elizabeth line makes an easy exit after your last drink.

Because the Mitre is shut on Sundays and closes at 9pm on Saturdays, keep a backup in mind. The Harp at 47 Chandos Place, near Charing Cross, is another Fuller's cask pub open noon to 8pm on Sunday, and its narrow front bar works the same standing way. If every barrel is taken on a weekday evening, the snug or the upstairs room is usually your best bet before giving up and moving on.

Address: Ye Olde Mitre, 1 Ely Court, Ely Place, Holborn, London EC1N 6SJ. Hours: Monday to Friday 11am to 11pm, Saturday 11am to 9pm, closed Sunday. Food: noon to 9:30pm weekdays, noon to 4pm Saturday. Nearest stations: Chancery Lane and Farringdon. Seven real ales including at least three guests, plus scrumpy cider. Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP to route you to the alley entrance from your office.