THE SHIP ANSON

The site of The Ship Anson in Portsmouth, England - home of the Royal Navy - has been associated with pubs and ale houses since the 1600s. If you're an anglophile, you've probably heard the expression "to take the King's shilling". The Ship Anson pub is right next to where the expression originated. It seems one Louisa Walcott ran a pub called the London Tavern there. She dropped coins into her unwary customers' tankards. Traditionally, once they drank, they had taken the King's shilling and were recruited into the Navy. According to some reports, she recruited 26,572 men into the Navy that way. The Luftwaffe put an end to the London Tavern in WWII. What's that got to do with the Ship Anson today The beer garden of the older pub, the Ship Anson, is where the London Tavern once stood. Though it too has a pub landlady, and though the Royal Navy is still very much in evidence here, you can down a pint without worries about being drafted, press ganged or shanghai'd. It's a great place to stop for a drink and a cheap to moderately priced meal if you are visiting some of Portsmouth's great sites - HMS Warrior, Nelson's HMS Victory and the new Spinnaker Tower, built for the Millennium. To Drink: I had a very nice lager and lime (that's beer with a squirt of lime cordial to Yanks; very popular in these parts). The bar stocks Fosters, Ruddles, Heineken, John Smiths, Carling, Stella Artois, Guinness, Extra Cold and Strongbow