Cache-Control: public, max-age=1024000 The Bedford Head Covent Garden

THE BEDFORD HEAD COVENT GARDEN

Was a luxurious refectory, in Southampton-street, whose epicurism is commemorated by Pope:—

"Let me extol a cat on oysters fed,

I'll have a party at the Bedford Head."

2nd Sat. of Horace, 2nd Bk.

"When sharp with hunger, scorn you to be fed

Except on pea-chicks, at the Bedford Head?"

Pope, Sober Advice.

Walpole refers to a great supper at the Bedford Head, ordered by Paul Whitehead, for a party of gentlemen dressed like sailors and masked, who, in 1741, on the night of Vernon's birthday, went round Covent Garden with a drum, beating up for a volunteer mob; but it did not take.

John Timbs
Club Life of London Vol. II
London, 1866