The Banker
The Banker
The Banker, Cousin Lane, City of London, EC4R 3TE
The Banker Today
The Banker is a Fuller's pub on the north bank of the Thames, tucked beneath the railway arches of Cannon Street Station. The vaulted brick ceilings are the original Victorian arches, built to carry the elevated tracks and platforms of the station, which opened on 1 September 1866.
Look up at the right moment and you'll spot an ingenious arrangement for channelling water ingress away without interfering with the pub below — though it is tempting to wonder whether, left long enough, the slow drip might one day form a stalagmite worthy of its own corner.
It is one of only two pubs within the City of London boundary that sit directly on the Thames; the other, the Samuel Pepys, is just 100 metres upstream. Inside there is a warren of rooms, stairs and nooks. The ground floor houses a chophouse and restaurant, and the long windowed room on the upper floor offers a fine view across the river and Cannon Street Railway Bridge.
The Banker Past
Cousin Lane was once the route down to a riverside loading dock, which was filled in during 1995–96. The lane itself, with various spellings, can be traced back to the twelfth century, its houses passed from generation to generation. It sat within Dowgate Ward and the parish of All Hallows the Great — so named because it stood next to a large hay-wharf, to distinguish it from the neighbouring All Hallows the Less.
Cannon Street Railway Bridge, designed by Sir John Hawkshaw and opened in 1866, consists of five impressive spans supported by cast-iron Doric pillars. Many of its original ornamental features were removed during an extensive British Rail renovation in 1982.
To find a properly historical pub still standing on the Thames you would need to travel about two miles downstream, to the Prospect of Whitby — both The Banker and the Samuel Pepys are relatively recent arrivals.Nearby Notables
Stand on the terrace and turn upstream and you are looking along the Thames Path, which is walkable for miles in either direction. More immediately, you will see Walbrook Wharf — an operating freight wharf granted safeguarded status by the Mayor of London and the Port of London Authority.
From time to time, if you are lucky, the Thames Path is briefly closed by auto-locking gates, with an audible warning that carries across to the Banker's terrace, signalling that barge loading is under way. The containers, packed with refuse from central London, are transferred onto barges and shipped downstream to the Belvedere Incinerator in the Borough of Bexley. You can watch the loading through the grilles in the gates — usually all over within minutes.