The Best Christmas Pubs in London: 10 Festive Pubs for Lights, Fires and Dickens

Every winter the flowers that cover the Churchill Arms give way to Christmas trees, and the whole frontage on Kensington Church Street disappears under them: dozens of trees strung with tens of thousands of lights, close to a hundred trees in its biggest years. It has earned the pub a reputation as the most festive in Britain, and on a December evening the pavement fills with people photographing it before they have even reached the bar. Inside, the walls are crammed with Churchill memorabilia (the pub claims a connection to Winston's grandparents), and at the back, oddly and brilliantly, is a Thai kitchen that has been cooking for more than thirty-five years. Go early in the evening, find a corner under the clutter, and order a pint and a curry. It is a properly London way to start the season.

You find Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese by ducking off Fleet Street into Wine Office Court, a passage so narrow it feels like a secret. There has been a pub on the site since 1538, and the building you walk into was put up straight after the Great Fire of 1666. Inside it is a warren of small, dark, wood-panelled rooms on several levels, with high-backed pews, a chop room and open fires in the old front bars that are lit through the winter. Dickens was a regular, and it is easy to see why the place feels made for a cold December evening: there is barely any daylight, the beer is Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Bitter drawn from oak casks, and the signature dish is steak and kidney pudding. Head down to the vaulted cellar bar if the rooms upstairs are full.

The Grapes is a narrow old pub at the end of Narrow Street in Limehouse, with its back to the Thames. A tavern has stood here since the 1580s and the present building dates from around 1720; Dickens knew Limehouse from childhood visits to his godfather, and the pub is generally taken as the model for the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters in Our Mutual Friend. Today it is owned by Sir Ian McKellen with partners, and the walls are hung with Dickens's books and illustrations. Squeeze into the downstairs bar, then step out onto the small heated terrace above the river to watch the lights of the water in the dark. It is the most atmospheric short trip east of the City in December.

If your Christmas involves Covent Garden's lights and shops, the Lamb & Flag is the pub to escape to. It sits down Rose Street, a little alley off Garrick Street, and has a past to match the Dickens connection: in rougher days its upstairs room hosted bare-knuckle prize fights, which earned it the nickname the Bucket of Blood, and a plaque outside recalls the poet John Dryden being set upon in the alley in 1679. Dickens drank here too. Now it is a Fuller's pub with the upstairs Dryden Bar, pies, fish and chips and Sunday roasts, and in December it fills quickly after work, with drinkers spilling into the alley in coats. Book ahead if you want to eat.

The Princess Louise on High Holborn looks like a Christmas card from the inside. Its interior was remodelled in 1891 and has barely changed: gilded and etched mirrors, painted tiles, a mosaic floor and mahogany partitions with cut-glass panels dividing the room into a run of small drinking booths around a big island bar. CAMRA counts it among the most important pub interiors in the country. On a dark December afternoon, with the lamps lit and every mirror doubling the glow, it is hard to beat for a pint with someone you want to talk to. The beer is Samuel Smith's from Tadcaster, and the kitchen does fish and chips, sausage and mash and pies.

Tucked onto Francis Street beside Westminster Cathedral, the Windsor Castle is a Victorian pub that most people walking up Victoria Street never notice. Go in and you find dark wood, brass, stained glass and a high corniced ceiling, a fire for cold evenings, and one of the best surviving examples of the old divided pub layout, which CAMRA rates as of outstanding national importance. The walls carry pictures of Victoria and Albert and small watercolours of rooms inside the castle the pub is named after. It is a calm, old-fashioned place for a pint of Samuel Smith's before carols at the cathedral or after Christmas shopping on Victoria Street.

Ye Olde Mitre is famously hard to find: down a passage barely wider than your shoulders between Ely Place and Hatton Garden. The pub traces its roots to 1546, when it was built for the servants of the Bishops of Ely, and in the front bar stands the trunk of a cherry tree that legend says Elizabeth I danced around with Sir Christopher Hatton. Whether or not she did, it gives the place a storybook feel. Inside there is a real fire, framed old pictures, well-kept Fuller's ales, toasties and board games: everything you want to come in from a cold City street to. Check before you go at the weekend, as it does not always open on Saturdays and Sundays.

With a name like that, the Holly Bush was always going to make this list, but it earns its place. It sits on a quiet lane above Hampstead high street, in a building that started out as the stables of the painter George Romney's house and became a pub in the early 1800s, after a spell catering for the Hampstead Assembly Rooms. Inside it is all dark wood panelling and small rooms, with a fire in the bar and a separate dining room for a long Christmas lunch. Fuller's ales are on, the food holds an AA Rosette, and dogs are welcome, which matters after a muddy walk across the Heath.

The Spaniards Inn has stood on the edge of Hampstead Heath since around 1585, beside an old tollhouse that still narrows the road outside. It is steeped in stories: it appears in Dickens's Pickwick Papers, Keats is said to have written parts of Ode to a Nightingale nearby, and the highwayman Dick Turpin is part of its legend, though most historians doubt he ever drank here. On a winter's day the wood-panelled rooms and the fireplace are what you want after a walk across the Heath, and it feels a long way from central London.

The Flask on Highgate West Hill has been pouring for centuries, and it is made for December: a cluster of characterful rooms and snugs, real fires, cask ales and modern craft beers, and space for a big group if your Christmas drinks have got out of hand. It is a natural finish after a walk on the Heath or round Highgate village, dogs are welcome, and you can book a table for food. Arrive at dusk, grab a snug by the fire, and stay.