The Culpeper in London’s Aldgate and comprises of:
- Ground floor: Pub
- 1st Floor: Restaurant
- 2nd Floor: Bedrooms
- Roof: Terrace and Garden
The Culpeper is the perfect spot to start your day. With a traditional English pub offering a great selection of real ales, a menu of traditional British pub food and fantastic views over the city, there’s no place better for a relaxed day and evening out with family and friends. One of the most unique drinking establishments in Central London.
It used to be called the Princess Alice (One of Queen Victoria’s first children to die). Probably not the best name for a pub and doubly cursed as there is a similarly named bar about a 5 minutes walk away. The Culpeper was named after Nicholas Culpeper, the famous herbalist who only lived a hundred metres from the area in the 17th century.
The moment you walk into the interior of the pub you immediately notice a sense of warmth and atmosphere; the quiet and friendly staff, the cosy crowd, the warm lighting and the rich wood interior. The place is the hub of a social scene that is refined, welcoming and undeniably cool. The intimate interior provides a welcoming space for large groups of friends to drink their selection of continental draught lagers and locally bottled beers or share a bottle of wine or a glass of prosecco.
On the first floor is their popular restaurant. The ambience is warm and welcoming, and the décor is bright and cheery. The amazing menu selection is a mix of traditional fancy favourites and modern twists of three entrees, mains and desserts. For those who like to linger over a good drink and a large plate of food, this is the place to go. So if you’re looking to shift scenery and are looking for somewhere to eat, you don’t have far to go to taste the fresh food that The Culpeper serves.
On the second floor, The Culpeper Bedrooms offers cosy double bedroom settings with a continental or Full English/Irish breakfast for couples. Also, all rooms at the hotel are fitted with a seating area and a flat-screen TV. The rooms have a private bathroom with a shower and a hairdryer. The guests (particularly couples) love the location and they have rated the place 9.5 for a two-person trip.
On the third floor, The Rooftop has its own bar which serves their signature cocktails; a bespoke grill from the London Log Company; an intimate 12 to 14 seater glass Greenhouse where you can relax, drink and eat under the London sun, shine, rain and stars. The rooftop garden also presents an amazing view of The Square Mile skyline and you have the advantage of looking deeper into the heavens due to one of the regular rooftop astronomy events.
Address: 40 Commercial St, London E1 6LP
Nearest Tube: Aldgate East (Hammersmith & City line)
Nearby landmarks:
- Whitechapel Gallery
- Ibis Shoreditch
Who was Nicholas Culpeper?
Nicholas Culpeper was born in 1616 in Ockley, Surrey. Fluent in Latin and Greek, his grandmother encouraged his interest in medicinal plants and herbs. He went on to study at Cambridge and then became an apothecary apprentice.
Thanks to his marriage to a 15-year-old grain merchant heiress in 1640, he opened a pharmacy in Spitalfields and was radical in offering free healthcare with herbal remedies, and examining patients face to face rather than the common practise of examining urine.
Thanks to his unorthodox methods, he was accused on witchcraft which pushed him to serve with the London Trained Band Militia in the English civil war as a battlefield surgeon. He was shot in the chest at the First Battle of Newbury (1643), and died of tuberculosis in Spitalfields in 1654 aged just 37.
What is Nicholas Culpeper famous for?
Culpeper was a renowned botanist and herbalist and catalogued hundreds of outdoor medicinal herbs. He was a republican and political radical, who dedicated his life to serving the sick, poor and the powerless.
