Edward Vernon Utterson F.S.A. The Cock and Pye Inn, Drury Lane London

Pen and grey ink and watercolour over pencil.
28 x 19.8 cm.; 11 x 7 ¾ inches

Provenance
With Leger Galleries, London, December 1986 (as St Martin’s Lane);
Private collection until 2019;
With Guy Peppiatt Fine Art;
Private collection until 2024

The ‘Cock and Pye Inn’ or ‘Cock and Magpie’ was on the west side of Drury Lane. Nell Gwynn was said to have lodged there at one time. By 1874 it had become a book shop. It was depicted in the print “View of the Cock & Pie Public House in Drury Lane” published in 1807 as the frontispiece to volume 52 of The European Magazine. “Entire, or “intire”, written on the outside of the wall of the inn, was an expression used by brewers to indicate a beer where the first, second and third mashes had been mixed and fermented together to make one grade of beer, rather than brewed separately to produce three different-strength beers.

The church seen in the distance is St Mary-le-Strand, built from 1714-1723 by James Gibbs, one of the finest Baroque churches in London.