Rules restaurant to National Trust: owner JP Mayhew donates London's oldest restaurant in £11m gift
JP Mayhew, who bought Rules on Maiden Lane in 1984, has donated the restaurant's historic 34-35 Maiden Lane home to the National Trust in an £11m gift, the charity's first venture into restaurants.
Rules restaurant to National Trust: owner JP Mayhew donates London's oldest restaurant in £11m gift
The National Trust is getting into the restaurant business, thanks to one of the most valuable gifts in its recent history. JP Mayhew, who bought Rules in 1984, has donated the Maiden Lane restaurant's historic home in Covent Garden to the charity - a gift valued at £11m and described as a landmark.
A gift two centuries in the making
Mayhew first approached the trust several years ago about the possibility of the gift. In explaining why he has given away the building, he pointed to the decades of effort and good fortune that kept Rules alive at all.
"With many years of hard work, and some extraordinary strokes of luck, Rules has survived everything from redevelopment plans and changing tastes to the blitz"
He said he was assured the heritage charity will "protect this place in a way that no one else could", and that the trust taking on 34-35 Maiden Lane would safeguard its bricks and mortar, famous interior and invisible atmosphere.
- The £11m gift is one of the most valuable in the National Trust's recent history
- It marks the charity's first entry into the restaurant business
- Mayhew said he was grateful for the protection of the building and two centuries worth of stories for people to enjoy
London's oldest restaurant
Thomas Rule founded the Maiden Lane restaurant in the late 18th century, serving his first oysters when George III was on the throne, John Adams was US president and William Pitt the Younger had introduced income tax to fund the Napoleonic wars.
Since then it has outlasted nine British monarchs and 45 prime ministers, changing hands only three times. Writers and film stars have kept it in fashion: Dickens and Thackeray loved it, Graham Greene drew inspiration from it, and Charlie Chaplin, Laurence Olivier and Ava Gardner were among its famous regulars.
- The four-storey interior, stuffed with historic playbills, vintage caricatures and gilded antlers, is little changed from the 19th century
- The menu remains meaty, with dishes including rabbit rillettes, shin of veal and roast guinea fowl
- Lucy Porten, a national curator for the charity, called it "an extraordinary slice of the social history of London", rare for having done the same business on the same site for so long
What changes under the trust
Very little, by the sound of it. Mayhew sold the restaurant business itself in 2022 to Ricky McMenemy, its longstanding general manager, who will now run it as a commercial tenant of the National Trust.
Porten said the trust's day-to-day involvement will probably be very light touch and that the premises "will always be run as a restaurant". She was equally firm about the menu: "There will be no scones. That's not their business" - the point being that Rules is a successful business in its own right, not a National Trust menu.
- No preferential access or prices for National Trust members, because the business has to be successful
- The charity is exploring virtual visits and other ways people could "feel like they are visiting the space" from afar
The trust is not entirely new to hospitality: its portfolio already includes 39 historic pubs and country house hotels such as Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, but never a restaurant like this.
Why the trust said yes
The charity examined carefully whether it was the right organisation for the building before accepting. Porten said that because the trust can take places on inalienably, forever, it had to weigh what was right both now and for future generations, which required a balanced decision.
Part of the appeal, she said, was that the restaurant helps the charity "tell different histories which are hard for us to tell at our other properties". The business Mayhew sold in 2022 now continues under McMenemy as tenant, with the building protected by the trust.
