Call it a Cock & Bull story but a disproportionate number of British pubs, bars and taverns have ‘cock’ in their name. What’s up with that?

Ye Olde Cock

While we’re on the topic, why don’t these outwardly manly establishments have any femininely-titled counterparts, as in “hen”… what did you think we meant? Anyway, the real reason England boasts so many “cock” pubs has nothing to do with salaciousness, Beavis- er, faithful reader, but for now feel free to feast your eyes upon one of the better known examples: Ye Olde Cock Tavern, on Fleet Street in central London.

It’s uncertain whether the famed 17th-century diarist Samuel Pepys really “drank a cup of Cock ale” at Ye Olde Cock Tavern, though he was known to frequent a number of watering holes in and around Fleet Street. Modern-day publicans should have no hesitation when it comes to getting their Pepys on, however, because what happens at Ye Olde Cock Tavern STAYS at Ye Olde Cock Tavern. Credit photographers quite peculiar, David, and nikoretro for posting the images above at their respective Flickr accounts.

The Famous Cock

Note, if you will, that Pepys wasn’t just enamored of any type of ale. No indeed! The er, barley literate wordsmith expressed a specific hankering for “Cock ale”… not that there’s anything wrong with that. He wasn’t the only Brit-brew-bro to feel that way, either, although with the passage of time the cocks have fled from the beer barrels to the pub signs. Ponder on that if you will, while you ogle Flickr member Ewan Munro‘s shot of The Famous Cock (formerly The Cock, and before that The Old Cock Tavern) near Highbury & Islington station in north London.

Cock O’ The North

So, just what WAS this bewitchingly “cocky” beverage that had the perspicacious Pepys, pen in hand, popping into pub after pub? According to Hannah Woolley, who wrote “The Accomplish’d lady’s delight in preserving, physick, beautifying, and cookery” in 1670, the standard recipe for Cock Ale called for infusing a boiled cock in eight gallons of ale along with raisins, nutmeg, dates, mace, and fortified wine for about a week. And by “cock”, she means “rooster”… that’s almost a relief! Flickr member crabchick brings us this September 2000 image of Cock O’ The North (since renamed the Westbury Park Tavern) from the very cocky city of Bristol.

Cock & Crown

One might say Cock Ale was chicken soup for the drunkard’s soul, and you wouldn’t be far off the mark. Sure, pickling a whole chicken in spiced beer may be weird (not to mention being a gross violation of the German Beer Purity Law of 1516) but the restorative qualities of such con-cock-tions were rather well known by the late 1600s. Flickr member Tim Green snapped the Cock & Crown tavern in Crofton, West Yorkshire, late in 2014.

The Fighting Cocks

Them’s fightin’ words… or fighting cocks, which strikes us as being illegal, unpleasant, and a lyric from ELP’s Karn Evil 9. In any case, a pint of cock ale would really hit the spot iffen you was a’fixin’ to do some fightin’. A case of cock ale, on the other hand, might have you fightin’ to get up off the floor. Seems like a textbook example of the Fight or Flight reflex in action, and the action’s happening at The Fighting Cocks pub in Moseley, Birmingham. Snapped by Flickr member Elliott Brown in December of 2009, this Grade II Listed building dates from the dawn of the 20th century and boasts its own integral cock tower. Make that CLOCK tower, dangnabbit!

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Fully Cocked 10 British Cock Pubs Taverns

Not every pub in London has a spying room complete with binoculars so patrons can gaze into the windows of the British Intelligence Service across the street – nor does just any old pub have a historic basement so creepy and rife with strange activity that the owners have set up a CCTV system just to keep an eye on it. The Morpeth Arms is definitely one of a kind, used as a prison and transfer facility for inmates waiting to be shipped off to Australia before its conversion into a business.

If you think this sounds like a publicity schtick to get more tourists to spend fists full of quid on burgers and ale, you’re not far off, but there’s a layer of fascinating history beneath the hype. Built in 1845, this public house at 58 Millbank in London’s Pimlico district was originally established as a deportation facility. A tunnel system running beneath the city streets carried convicts from the old Millbank prison to a holding area beneath the pub, while they waited for transportation to whisk them away. The prison itself, which featured six wings attached to a central chapel like the petals of a flower, closed in 1890 and was ultimately demolished.

The basement isn’t open to the public, but customers can see into it via a live feed on a prominently placed monitor, over a sign reading ‘Can you see the haunted prisoner?’ According to Atlas Obscura, employees have reported glimpses of inexplicable movement, items going missing and a general sense of unease. The beer barrels are kept in the area beside the former cells, which are just dank, mildewy rooms off the arched brick tunnels.

The tongue-in-cheek spying room, meanwhile, really does look in on MI6. It has its own bar, a Mata Hair theme and is, unsurprisingly, often packed full of actual spies from across the street, who sometimes bring members of the FBI with them. So, fair warning, if you’re running from the Feds, find ye another pub on Millbank to patronize.

A new pub and brewery building has been constructed from recycled materials in Kamikatsu, a Japanese town famous for its advanced recycling program that sorts waste in 34 categories for optimal reuse.

Designed by Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP, the structure embodies the waste-reducing principles of the community, which manages to remarkable 80% recycling rate.

Prominently, one facade is constructed from windows taken from abandoned houses and doubled up to trap air and improve insulation. This community-facing elevation brings in light but also acts as an icon of sustainability for the town but also a beacon to outsiders highlighting the area’s eco-friendly endeavors.

Their pub (a word derived from ‘public house’) aims to be open and inviting, a place where people can share a drink in large shared spaces.

Patrons sit on upcycled and converted furniture from various sources, walk on surfaces tiled with old factory flooring in spaces wall-papered with old news, all enclosed by facades wrapped in recycled cedar boards.

The business also sells groceries and other household supplies, acting as a commercial hub for the town in various secondary ways.

If knocking pack a pint in a subterranean Victorian urinal doesn’t sound like a good time to you, read on. Extensive renovations have transformed the most unlikely of settings into quirky and often beautiful places to have a drink, from dumpsters and sheds to historic bank vaults and gothic churches.

The Temple: Victorian Urinal Pub

Once dark, dingy and far from sanitary, a subterranean Victorian urinal is now a popular pub in Manchester, UK. One of the city’s smallest bars, the Temple nevertheless offers a vast array of foreign bottled beers. Meanwhile, in London, a urinal from the same era has now become an eatery after a $150,000 renovation.

Oran Mor Church Pub

Europe is brimming with former places of worship that have since been converted into private residences, hotels and more due to an overabundance of churches that just don’t draw the same crowds that they used to. The Oran Mor in Glasgow, Scotland is just one (particularly stunning) example, which has become one of the nation’s hottest nightspots after a major renovation that includes trippy murals painted all over the ceilings. This may remind some visit of the cultre of a Bratislava night if they ever went on a Bratislava stag do.

Woodhenge Shed Pub

It’s not hard to see why John Plumridge’s handmade backyard structure won Shed of the Year in 2012. After all, not many sheds are lined with hundreds of bottles of ale. Plumridge spent 4 years converting his Woodhenge Pub Shed into “a great venue for family and friends to party in.”

Dumpster Bar

Urban waste and a dumpster became a tiny, charming bar as part of the Foundation Projects by designers Rikkert Paauw and Jet van Zweiten. This adaptive reuse project shapes found materials into little dumpster houses that have practical purposes throughout the cities in which they’re built.

1926 Bank Vault, Chicago

A beautiful 1926 bank vault in Chicago with many of its historic features still intact – including that incredible door – is now known as The Bedford, a local kitchen and bar serving food and cocktails in a signature mix of German and Southern cuisine.

Hop On Inn: Double Decker Bus Pub

Named for its hop-on, hop-off rear platform, the Hop On Inn is a renovated 1966 London double-decker bus that now hosts a full bar downstairs and a lounge area upstairs complete with a stage and removable roof cover for live music. The bus, which once served Piccadilly Circus, is among the last classic Routemasters that were taken out of service in 2005.

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Holy Beer 12 Pubs Converted From Churches Urinals More

New York has a long history of hidden and illicit venues – one that did not stop when prohibition was lifted. There is the innocuous pizza shop where dialing the right number in their phone booth lets you through a secret door into the pub. Or the various hole-in-the-wall places where you add your number to a wait list and hope for a call.

And then this, the now-defunct bar inside an abandoned water tower in Chelsea, requiring one to following a winding path up through a deserted building to find a surprise at the top.

Per the New York Times (images by Benjamin Norman), “The Night Heron was an invitation-only nightclub held illegally in a water tower atop a vacant building in Chelsea.” Guests had to make their way through a deserted building, then climb up a ladder to reach their destination.

All-nighters were common for this bustling little sweet spot, with last guests being let in as late as three in the morning. Live music reverberated within the wooden slats of the tightly-packed circular interior, with bottles of whisky reinforcing the retro (albeit a bit hipster) vibe of the whole affair. Alas, all good things must come to an end – particularly when they are a little less than legal in the first place.