Bar Indo (London)

 pub / public house, pizzeria, historical building

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There has been a pub here since at least the eighteenth century, probably earlier. Until the late 1760s it was known as David and Harp. An alley on the site of No. 131, present since at least the 1650s, was called King David's Alley or David and Harp Alley. In 1770 Edward Rayner appears to have been the first proprietor to have called the establishment the Blue Anchor (Whitechapel's earlier Blue Anchor was on what is now Royal Mint Street). Destroyed by fire on Christmas Day in 1853, the Blue Anchor was rebuilt for George Church in 1854 by William Mundy & Son, builders. Church obtained a music license in 1856. His building still stands, its four-story stuccoed Italianate front pack with arched openings. The ground-floor front and interior, where match-board dados and a yellowed ornamental ceiling survive, were recast for Charringtons in 1928 by when the pub was known as the Old Blue Anchor. Since 2000 it has continued as Bar Indo, a free house, with the old Blue Anchor sign in store. A timber cottage to the west, beyond a narrow throughway to a yard that was a remnant of the alley, was replaced in 1855 with a narrow shophouse, Hall & Son as its builders. This echoed the pub in its facade and blocked the passage. It survives in mutilated form as No. 131. Source: surveyoflondon.org/map/feature/437/detail/