Three Mariners

The Three Mariners tavern in Lambeth is among the main Thames stairs and docks listed on John Rocque’s 1746 map of London. Whatever its reputation in the eighteenth century, the tavern seems to have been a popular haunt in the seventeenth century. Samuel Pepys writes of visiting in 1661 for his morning draught of ale, ‘and staid awhile very merry’. While conducting repairs in 1752, the landlord found a large, elegant armchair, believed to have been used by Charles I when he visited the Three Mariners ‘on his water tours with his ladies, … to play at chess, &c.’