the eagle and child

Jokingly called the "Bird and Baby" or "The Bird" by the Inklings, this was a convenient pub from Magdalen College and they met there upon several occasions.

48 & 49 St Giles' Street, Oxford

Photo Gallery
These were taken in 2006.

meetings

There was never any writing or reading of chapters at the Bird & Baby-- it was simply for general discussion. The Inklings met before lunch at the pub from the late 1930s to early 1960s for discussion. Tolkien used to stop by after his morning lectures. Legend has sprung up the meetings were on Mondays and Fridays, but in reality it was a much more loose affair. They'd stop by on Tuesdays, Thursdays or whenever it happened to work out. In the 1940s usually the Lewis brothers and Charles Williams would be there and other people came and went as they pleased.

While it has come to be a sort of legend among Inklings devotees, it was only one of the many pubs they would stop by. Mostly it was used simply because it was one of the closest decent pubs to Lewis' rooms. However, it should not be completely downplayed, because it was one of the crucial places the group met for discussion. Here is a description of one such meeting, in 1944, by J.R.R. Tolkien:

"The conversation was pretty lively - though I cannot remember any of it now, except C.S.L.'s story of an elderly lady that he knows. (She as a student of English in the past days of Sir Walter Raleigh. At her viva she was asked: 'What period would you have liked to live in Miss B?' 'In the 15th C.' said she. 'Oh come, Miss B., wouldn't you have liked to meet the Lake poets?' 'No, sir, I prefer the society of genglemen'. Collapse of viva.) - and I noticed a strange tall gaunt man half in khaki half in mufti with a large wide-awake hat, bright eyes and a hooked nose sitting in the corner. The others had their backs to him, but I could see in his eye that he was taking an interest in the conversation quite unlike the ordinary pained astonishment of the British (and American) public at the presence of the Lewises (and myself) in a pub. It was rather like Trotter [Aragorn] at the Prancing Pony, in fact v. like. All of a sudden he butted in, in a strange unplaceable accent, taking up some point about Wordsworth. In a few seconds he was revealed as Roy Campbell"
("Letters" 95).

- BACK -