This rather macabre monikered institution, which was located in St Martin’s Lane in Covent Garden, dates back to 1682 when it was founded by Thomas Slaughter as Slaughter’s (the “old” apparently added at a later date after another coffee house opened with the name “New Slaughters” following Thomas Slaughter’s death in 1740).

Known as a location for games, particularly chess and whist, it attracted the likes of French mathematician and exile Abraham de Moivre, Benjamin Franklin and the chess player Andre Philidor.

Henry Fielding was another who frequented the coffee house early on – he nick-named the head waiter ‘Sock’ but he also became known as “Punch Spiller” for having spilled punch on his way to the guest’s table. Biographer James Boswell also attended and records Samuel Johnson as having visited.

It also become something of a haven for artists with William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, architect Robert Adam and sculptor Louis-Francis Rubiliac among those all cited as being patrons. Artistic gatherings at the storied establishment served as a forerunner to the creation of the Royal Academy.

The RSPCA was founded – initially as the Society for the Prevention Cruelty to Animals – at a meeting in the coffee house on 16th June 1824. A City of Westminster plaque marks the site of coffee house thanks to this connection.

The property survived until 1843 when it was demolished to allow for the widening of Cranbourn Street.