OLD BELL INN

On the north side of Holborn at No.123 (P.O. Directory). In Farringdon Ward Within.

First mention:Horwood, 1799.

Former name: "Bell Inn" (O. and M. 1677, and Rocque, 1746).

The inn is mentioned in 1538 in a deed of conveyance of the property, and it seems at one time, with the houses on each side of it, to have formed one large messuage called the" Bell" or" Blew Bell" Inn. It adjoined Ely Place on the north. It was one of the old galleried inns, and with its sale for purposes of rebuilding in 1897 the last of these inns existing on the Middlesex side of the river passed away.