Which Oxford pub was the regular meeting place of C.S. Lewis’s Inklings?

The Eagle and Child was the Oxford pub where C.S. Lewis’s Inklings regularly met.

The pub, located on St Giles’ Street, became associated with the literary discussion group during the 1930s and 1940s. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and other writers read unfinished work aloud, discussed literature, and exchanged ideas there.

The group also met in Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen College, Oxford. The pub’s affectionate nickname, “the Bird and Baby,” comes from its sign showing an eagle carrying a child. That nickname is especially familiar to readers of Lewis and Tolkien.

The Inklings were not a formal society with membership rules or a published program. They were an informal circle whose conversations helped shape works such as Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Lewis’s fiction and apologetics. The Eagle and Child therefore became a symbol of their fellowship, not their only meeting place.