Official Mermaid Tavern signage revealed

Carmen and Gregg Sheldon, friends from Santa Rosa, California, left yesterday to return home. They both work at Santa Rosa Junior College and school starts today. Gregg is a student counselor. Carmen is head of the Applied Graphics department, meaning she teaches design, art, graphics software applications, etc. Carmen made this beautiful wood and clay sculpture sign for Robin.


A new sign for Robin's Mermaid Tavern.

Robin's house is known as The Mermaid Tavern. In Shakespeare's day, the original Mermaid Tavern was on the corner of Friday and Bread Streets in London. All of the notable writers, thinkers, and poets of the day (not including the man named William Shakespeare) met there on the first Friday of every month (on Friday Street) to socialize and discuss politics, literature, and whatever.

The original group was known as The First Friday Club. The group of Shakespeare readers that meet at Robin's house on the first Friday of every month is also known as The First Friday Club.

Robin visited the location while in London. It's still a pub. It's now named The Seahorse. The current owners had no clue about its illustrious history, but it's interesting that they happened to choose a name that's closely related to the original, even though they didn't realize the original name was The Mermaid Tavern.


The Friday Street side of the original Mermaid Tavern.


The Bread Street side of The Mermaid Tavern.