The claim
Two small rooms behind a shopfront across from the back of the Royal Courts of Justice, hung with legal prints and cluttered with barristers at six o'clock. Roxy Beaujolais has kept the bar since 2001; the food is cooked upstairs and the cat wears a ruff. Open seven days, noon until eleven.
What the records show
The pub carries 1602 in its name and sets out its own case for the date, arguing from the frame behind the later brick and stucco. Historic England agrees as far as it can: perhaps C17 in origin, dated 1602, with a C19 pub front, bar backs, counters and a corner fireplace of about 1900. That is fabric of the claimed age, which is a grade B; what is missing is any document of an alehouse here in 1602. Historic England's map service dates the listing itself — entry 1244097, grade II, designated on 14 May 1974 — and names the building Seven Stars Public House, which is the earliest naming of these premises as a drinking house that this page can point at, and it is 1974. The name may have drawn Dutch sailors, though the first Anglo-Dutch war was fifty years off.
What to look for inside
- Faces the back of the Royal Courts of Justice
- C19 bar backs, counters and mirrors survive in both rooms
- Escaped the Great Fire of 1666
Visiting
The Seven Stars is in London, England, at 53-54 Carey Street, London WC2A 2JB. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1244097
- www.thesevenstars1602.co.uk/
- camra.org.uk/pubs/seven-stars-london-125532
- ratings.food.gov.uk/business/423861
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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