bronze plaque · London

The Coal Hole

The Coal Hole The Original Coal Hole was located in a cellar in fountain court a few yards from our present establishment. Its name seems to have derived from the coal heavers who worked nearby on the river thames. Edmund Kean, one of the biggest theatrical stars of his day, founded the wolf club at the coal hole. The story was that it was established for oppressed husbands who were not allowed to sing in the bath. The reality was an excuse for heavy drinking in the company of loose women Kean collapsed on stage in 1833 and died later. The old coal hole was demolished in 1889 and this building opened in 1904, briefly called the new strand wine lodge.

Inscription drawn from imported open data, awaiting original TributeLegacy editorial.

Source: Open Plaques. Geographic data via OpenStreetMap.

Nearby locations in London

Browse all memorials in London

Data sources

Location records are drawn from open, licence-clean datasets, kept here with attribution and gratitude to the people who maintain them.

Open Plaques, dedicated to the public domain (CC0). See openplaques.org.
Wikidata, available under the CC0 1.0 Universal dedication.
Historic England, National Heritage List for England, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0. War memorial records are drawn from open community datasets (OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, NHLE) — never from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which is excluded.

Editorial descriptions, photography and tribute links are original TributeLegacy work, layered on top of the open data.