Old Queen's Head, Islington

The Old Queen’s Head was one of five public houses included in Thomas Hosmer Shepherd’s publication, ‘London in the Nineteenth Century’ (1829-31). Shepherd was keen to record the appearance and a write a description of these examples of vernacular architecture before they were torn down for redevelopment. Shepherd took his description from ‘The Mirror of Literature’ (no.141, 21 May 1825), a popular weekly magazine, which stated that the building was ‘one of the most perfect specimens of ancient domestic architecture remaining in the neighbourhood of London’ and that it was ‘a place of great resort to Londoners on account of its antiquity and home-brewed ale’. By the time Shepherd’s book was published the old pub had been torn down and replaced with a newer building, which still operates under the same name and contains some seventeenth-century fittings from the previous structure.