What did Christopher Hatton Elizabeth I of England do at 1 Ely Court?

The Story

# The Mitre's Hidden Memory Standing before The Mitre on Ely Court, you're gazing upon one of London's most enchanting Tudor relics, where the young Queen Elizabeth I and her favored courtier Sir Christopher Hatton are said to have celebrated May Day by dancing around a fruit tree that still grows mysteriously through the building's front bar—a botanical ghost of courtly revelry that has survived over four centuries. Built in the 1500s when this corner of Farringdon was thick with taverns and the residences of bishops and nobility, The Mitre became a gathering place where the boundaries between royal protocol and youthful exuberance blurred, allowing the future monarch and the ambitious knight to steal moments of joy amid the rigid formality of Tudor court life. The fruit tree, now gnarled and ancient, serves as a living witness to that May Day celebration, its roots intertwined with the very foundations of the pub, making it impossible to remove without destroying the building itself—a testament to how deeply that moment of dance and laughter became embedded in this place's identity. For anyone walking these narrow medieval lanes today, The Mitre reminds us that even the most powerful figures in history craved simple pleasures, and that some locations carry their memories so vividly that centuries cannot diminish the magic of what once transpired within their walls.