The Groves Company Inn, 22-23 Fleet Street

Image: © P L Chadwick Taken: 15 Aug 2010

The Groves Company Inn is J D Wetherspoon's contribution to the local drinking scene. Fleet Street never was the most pleasant part of the town centre, but in recent years it has become even less so, with the mushrooming of vast drinking palaces such as this, aimed at younger people. Now this has become an area which prudent people would be wise to avoid at night, and even sometimes in parts of the day. The pub was opened on the 21st March 2001, at the time when these huge pubs and bars were first starting to emerge here, and in nearby Bridge Street and Faringdon Road. The name originates from the fact that at 22 Fleet Street, for many years, there used to be a firm of brewers and wine and spirit merchants called Groves & Company. Next door at no. 23, in the 1950's & 1960's, was a branch of Macfisheries the fishmongers. The tall building behind the pub is Western House.

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