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Cellpic Sunday – St George’s Tavern: Birthplace of the Music Hall

St George’s Tavern

February 2025.
London, Great Britain.

In February, we spent a couple of days in London to sightsee before boarding the Norwegian Bliss to sail back to the United States. After we settled into our hotel, on our first night, we ventured across the street to a pub-style dinner at St George’s Tavern. I was struck by the lighting on the building, and as we waited for the walk signal, I snapped a photo of the building and people waiting for a seat.

When I started research for this post, I was surprised to discover the pub’s legacy in the entertainment industry. It originally opened as a restaurant in the 1830s by Louisa Marriott (no relation to the hotel Marriotts). According to the pub’s website, in 1843, entertainment impresario Charles Morton purchased the restaurant and transformed it into a saloon-style venue, pioneering what became known as music hall entertainment. It was one of the first venues in London to host live performances where artists would do a “turn” — a short act or routine — for an audience of well-to-do patrons.

We took a short walk from Victoria Station to our hotel, which was chosen for its location in the Pimlico district of Westminster, near Buckingham Palace and Westminster Cathedral. Just across the street, St George’s Tavern continues to operate as a traditional British pub, part of the Nicholson’s Pubs chain, known for its individual style and historic character. It serves British pub classics, cask ales, and provides a welcoming atmosphere for locals and tourists alike.

About the photo: For those who might think this photo is one in my series of day-to-night conversions, you’re wrong! >grin< As I noted above, it was taken at night as we waited to cross the street. I used my Samsung S23U to take the image, and after returning to the states, I processed it in Adobe Lightroom Classic and Luminar Neo. The first step was correcting the geometry, as the image had a serious vertical “lean” caused by tilting the cellphone slightly to try to capture the lighting of the second and third floors of the building. It still could use some more vertical correction, but that would have caused the top light in front to disappear. I accepted the lean to keep the light. I then cropped the image to remove extraneous details left and right of the building.

Then it was off to Luminar Neo for final tweaks. I adjusted the exposure, relit the foreground with Enhance AI, and added a slight vignette in the corners before calling the image finished. If you want to see the metadata or pixel-peep in 2K HD, click on the image to view it on my Flickr site.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rule is that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device. If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s also acceptable. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

42 comments

  9. We like this pub, dear John.
    There are a lot of real pubs left in London, but not so in our area. We have 5 pubs around which were all transformed into Michelin star restaurants, which are nearly fully booked all the time.
    Cheers
    The Fab Four of Cley
    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

    Reply

    • I enjoy looking up details on the places we visit. Sometimes, I’m disappointed to learn something about a place after our journey and wish I’d known about it while we were there. Occupational hazard. >grin<

      Reply

  13. I think you stopped the alignment at the right spot. I really don’t notice the building leaning since all the action is on the ground floor.

    Reply

  19. LOL, you read my mind. I did think it was one of your day to night photos. It’s a great shot. I have to even up my pictures often. I did a lot of shadow removing in my pics this week. The history of your pub is interesting. We watched a history of musicals today – a little different than live music, but eye-opening, just the same. I love live music places. I bet that was a fun evening. 🙂 xxx

    Reply

    • That lean isn’t just in smart phones. Any time you tilt a camera slightly upward to include the upper stories of a building, that building will appear to lean back.
      My Samsung gallery editor has a tool that looks like a crop tool. If you select that, you can crop, straighten, or correct for horizontal or vertical lean.
      Just be sure when you take the photo to leave plenty of room around the building to allow for correction. Once it’s corrected, you can then crop out any excess space.

      Reply

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