The Bird and Baby in St Giles
Introduction
The photograph on this page of The Bird and Baby in St Giles by Natasha Ceridwen de Chroustchoff as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
The Bird and Baby in St Giles
Image: © Natasha Ceridwen de Chroustchoff Taken: 4 Mar 2008
The pub's name relates to the crest of the Earls of Derby whose family fortune was owed, by legend, to an ancestor whose wife had failed to produce an heir. Conveniently, the earl had a secret illegitimate son and the story goes that he arranged to have the baby left under a nearby tree so that when he took his wife for a stroll in the park they lighted upon the child, apparently dropped by an eagle and abandoned - she took it to her heart and thus the inheritance was secured. (And such was aristocratic life...) In more recent times the pub, known colloquially as the Bird and Baby, was the mid-C20 drinking den of The Inklings, a group of academic friends that included JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis as well as many other notable literary figures. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.757561
Longitude
-1.260482