The Standing Order

The Standing Order is a pub in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England, operated by the national pub chain J D Wetherspoon. It occupies a grade II listed red-brick building at 33 High Street, Stevenage, SG1 3AU, a site with a long commercial history: in the 1830s it housed Mrs Alice Fisher's Ladies' Boarding School, from the early nineteenth century until the 1960s it was a butcher's shop (first run by Joseph Moulden and later by F E O'Clee), and from 1963 into the 1990s it served as a branch of Lloyds Bank. The pub's name, "The Standing Order", recalls the building's banking past, since a standing order is a banking instruction for regular payments. As a Wetherspoon pub, The Standing Order follows the chain's familiar format: a large, value-focused, food-and-drink-led pub with an extensive menu of beers, ales, wines, spirits, cocktails and pub food, open from morning until late. The official listing shows opening hours of 8:00am to midnight Monday to Thursday and Sunday, and 8:00am to 1:00am on Friday and Saturday. Facilities include Wi-Fi, TV screens, a licensed outside area, baby-changing facilities and step-free access. Customers can order food and drinks to their table via the Wetherspoon app. The pub participates in Wetherspoon's wider promotional calendar, including the twice-yearly real-ale festivals (the autumn festival features international brewers and a range of real ales), the Christmas menu, and the chain's spritz cocktail range. Its parent, J D Wetherspoon plc, opened its first pub in 1979 in Muswell Hill, north London, and was floated on the Stock Exchange in 1992. The Standing Order is one of the chain's many individually named and individually themed pubs, each with its own local history displays; here, prints and text inside the pub tell the story of the building's past as a bank and butcher's shop.

The Standing Order is a pub operated by J D Wetherspoon in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Its history is inseparable from the building it occupies at 33 High Street, a grade II listed red-brick structure whose commercial life long predates the pub. In the 1830s the address was occupied by Mrs Alice Fisher, who ran a Ladies' Boarding School. She appears to have retired by 1851 but was still living at the address ten years later. From the early nineteenth century until Lloyds Bank took over, 33 High Street was a butcher's shop. It was first run by Joseph Moulden, and in the 1890s the business was taken over by F E O'Clee. Mr O'Clee made deliveries by horse and cart; his son Harry, possibly the first person in the town to own a car, replaced the horse with a motor-cycle combination. The O'Clee butcher's business continued until 1963. From 1963 into the 1990s the building housed a branch of Lloyds Bank. Lloyds itself traced its origins to eighteenth-century Birmingham: John Taylor, a Unitarian manufacturer of buttons and japanned goods, set up in partnership with a Quaker ironmonger, Sampson Lloyds, in 1765. The private bank Taylors & Lloyds operated only in Birmingham until the mid-nineteenth century; the sons of the original partners opened a bank in London, and when Lloyds absorbed this in 1884 it also acquired the famous Black Horse symbol. Following its merger with the Trustee Savings Bank, Lloyds became Lloyds TSB. The TSB traced its origins to Reverend Henry Duncan, who opened his Savings Bank near Dumfries in 1810. The bank branch at 33 High Street closed, and the building was subsequently converted into a Wetherspoon pub. J D Wetherspoon opened its first pub in Colney Hatch Lane, Muswell Hill, north London, on 9 December 1979, purchased from an entrepreneur who had converted it from a bookmaker's. For the first month it was called Martin's Free House, but it was renamed Wetherspoons early in 1980. For the first few years the company's pubs were all in north London, with the head office above The Dog in Archway. In 1990 the pubs hosted their first real-ale festival, lasting four days and featuring six beers; today each Wetherspoon pub takes part in the twice-yearly beer festivals, offering up to 50 beers each, 10 of them from overseas. In 1991 The Tally Ho in North Finchley opened with a dedicated non-smoking bar upstairs, one of several pioneering initiatives the company carried out before the smoking ban of July 2007. That year also saw the start of the CBS (cleanliness, beer, service) scheme, the first edition of Wetherspoon News, and the opening of Hamilton Hall at Liverpool Street station, the company's first central London and train-station pub. In 1992 Wetherspoon opened its first airport pubs, at Heathrow Terminal 4, and the company was floated on the Stock Exchange as J D Wetherspoon plc, with shares issued at £1.60. The Standing Order takes its name from the building's banking past, a standing order being a banking instruction for regular payments. Inside, prints and text tell the story of the site's previous occupants, including the Lloyds Bank branch and the O'Clee butcher's shop. As a modern Wetherspoon pub it offers an extensive food and drink menu, long opening hours, Wi-Fi, TV screens, a licensed outside area, baby-changing facilities and step-free access, and participates in chain-wide promotions such as the autumn beer festival, the Christmas menu and the spritz cocktail range.

• 1992

  J D Wetherspoon floated on the Stock Exchange as J D Wetherspoon plc

• 1990

  Wetherspoon's pubs host their first real-ale festival

• 1979

  J D Wetherspoon opens its first pub in Muswell Hill, north London

• 1963

  Butcher's business at 33 High Street ends; Lloyds Bank branch opens

• 1890

  F E O'Clee takes over the butcher's business

• 1830

  33 High Street occupied by Mrs Alice Fisher's Ladies' Boarding School

• Joseph Moulden runs a butcher's shop at 33 High Street

• Lloyds Bank branch at 33 High Street closes; building later converted into a Wetherspoon pub

A value-focused, high-volume J D Wetherspoon pub in a historic grade II listed building, offering affordable food and drink in central Stevenage.

• Real ale and cask beer

• Craft cans

• Spritz cocktails

• Pub food menu

• Christmas menu

• Hot honey chicken bowl

1. 1The Standing Order - J D Wetherspoonjdwetherspoon.com
2. 2History - J D Wetherspoonjdwetherspoon.com
3. 3The Standing Order - J D Wetherspoon (pub history)jdwetherspoon.com
4. 4About us - J D Wetherspoonjdwetherspoon.com
5. 5The Standing Order - Wikidatawikidata.org