The Jolly Butchers
204 Stoke Newington High Street
London
N16 7HU
Formerly a fairly rough and ready street-corner boozer in Stoke Newington. This was the kind of place that the police didn’t mind the local villains drinking in after hours. At least they knew where they were. I saw a great fight in here once in the late 1990s. After a stint as Bar Stokie it has recently decided to concentrate on great real ales and ciders.
You can’t argue with the fine tiled panel on the side wall aspect that depicts the butcher-kissing Duchess of Devonshire securing a vote for Charles James Fox in time-honoured fashion.
Fox was a 18th Century Whig politician in Westminster who was said to have had an affair with socialite Georgiana Cavendish - The Duchess of Devonshire and an ancestor of Lady Di. She was alleged to have traded kisses for votes on his behalf in the 1784 General Election.
