Jump to content

Nando's Coffee House

Coordinates: 51°30′49″N 0°06′40″W / 51.5137°N 0.1111°W / 51.5137; -0.1111
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MadameGloriana (talk | contribs) at 11:47, 9 February 2023. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

"Law and equity, or A peep at Nando's": a cartoon from 1787, depicting Edward Thurlow in his Chancellor's wig, approaching the bar at Nando's.

Nando's was a coffee house in Fleet Street in London. It was known to exist in 1696, being the subject of a conveyance, and was popular in the 18th century, especially with the legal profession in the nearby courts and chambers.

The name is thought to be a contraction of "Ferdinand's" or "Ferdinando's",[1] and its exact address is given variously as somewhere between 15[1] and 17[2] Fleet Street. David Hughson wrote in 1807 that Nando's occupied the building at 15 Fleet Street[1] which was previously the Rainbow Coffee House.[3]. However, property deeds in the Middle Temple Archive place the location of the coffee house at 14 Fleet Street[4].

The venue was a favourite haunt of Edward Thurlow, who became Lord Chancellor, and he was satirised as being enamoured of the landlady's attractive daughter.[5]

Charles Lamb refers to Nando's in his essay "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading," writing, "Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment. What an eternal time that gentleman in black, at Nando's, keeps the paper! I am sick of hearing the waiter bawling out incessantly, 'The Chronicle is in hand, Sir.'"[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Norman, Philip (1905). London Vanished & Vanishing. Macmillan.
  2. ^ Timbs, John (1872). Club Life of London.
  3. ^ Hughson, David (1807). London.
  4. ^ MT/4/1/12/5: 13-14 Fleet Street deeds, 39 files. In the Middle Temple Archive.
  5. ^ Henry Benjamin Wheatley, Peter Cunningham (2011), London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions, vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, pp. 571–572, ISBN 9781108028073
  6. ^ Lamb, Charles (1949). Brown, John Mason (ed.). The Portable Charles Lamb. New York: Viking. p. 442.

51°30′49″N 0°06′40″W / 51.5137°N 0.1111°W / 51.5137; -0.1111