Alistair Hardaker | Image: Signs outside the building at 34 - 35 Maiden Lane (National Trust Images - Megan Taylor)
Restaurant becomes a commercial tenant, with rent funding conservation, in the first operational historic restaurant in the charity’s care.
A Covent Garden building that houses the ‘Rules’ restaurant has been given to the National trust by its owner of 40 years, J-P Mayhew.
The building at 34-35 Maiden Lane houses what J-P Mayhew claims is the olden restautranty building in London.
Valued at more than £11m, its gift to the Trust includes the annual rent and its historic collection items.The Trust said the ongoing income from the gift will go into conservation work each year. Items as part of the gift to the trust iinclude visitor books, menus, caricatures, photographs, stained glass and signs.
Rules has operated since 1798 and began as an oyster house opened by Thomas Rule. According to the Trust, it is the last survivor of a group of London restaurants that included the Trocadero Restaurant, the Mirabelle, Le Gavroche and Kettner’s.
The restaurant business will remain operational and is not part of the gift. Previously owned by Mayhew, it is now owned by Ricky McMenemy, who has worked at the restaurant for 35 years. The gift means the restaurant will become a commercial tenant of the Trust.
McMenemy said the Trust’s ownership gives the restaurant business “both the security and peace of mind that our home will be in very good hands and be protected and secure going forward.”
The Trust’s portfolio already includes 39 historic pubs, including the George Inn in Southwark and the Crown Bar in Belfast. It says the newly added 34-35 Maiden Lane building will be the first building in its care to house a still-operational historic restaurant.
Hilary McGrady, Director-General of the National Trust, called the building an “outstanding piece of living history, with its corners where kings dined and writers and politicians plotted, and the traditions it kept alive through wars and upheaval.”
J-P Mayhew said of the gift: “The Trust will protect this place in a way that no-one else could, safeguarding its bricks and mortar, its famous interior and its invisible atmosphere too. I am grateful to them for believing in this idea and for protecting this building and two centuries worth of stories for people to enjoy forever.”
