Posted on August 10th, 2026
A Taste of London’s Past: The History of Pie and Mash
Few dishes carry the soul of a city quite like pie and mash carries London’s. Long before food halls and fusion menus, this humble plate of minced beef pie, mashed potato, and a bright green herb sauce known as “liquor” was keeping the capital’s working people fed, warm, and connected to home. Today, as artisan cafés and global cuisines compete for attention on every high street, pie and mash endures — not as a relic, but as a living tradition, with shops like Arments in Walworth leading the charge.
From Eels to Eel Pies to Meat Pies
The story doesn’t actually begin with pies at all — it begins with eels. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the River Thames teemed with eels, a cheap and plentiful source of protein for London’s poor. Street sellers known as “Piemen” hawked eel pies to dockers, market traders, and labourers who needed a fast, filling meal on a tight budget. As the Thames grew increasingly polluted through the Industrial Revolution, Dutch eel barges began supplying London instead, keeping the eel trade alive even as local stocks dwindled.
Eventually, dedicated Eel & Pie houses began replacing the itinerant Piemen, moving the trade off the streets and into permanent shopfronts across the East and South East of London. As fresh eels became scarcer and pricier, minced beef gradually took over as the pie filling of choice, while eels — jellied or stewed — remained a beloved side dish or meal in their own right. Mashed potato and the tangy, parsley-flecked liquor rounded out what became a complete, nourishing, and above all affordable meal built specifically to fuel dockers, factory workers, and market traders through long shifts.
Arments: A Living Piece of History
Few shops embody this heritage as vividly as Arments Pie & Mash on Westmoreland Road in Walworth, South London. The current shop has operated under the Arment family since 1914, when Emily and William Arment purchased it from the Evans family — but the building’s connection to the eel and pie trade stretches back even further, to at least 1881. That lineage makes Arments one of the oldest continuously operating pie and mash shops in London, if not the oldest.
Walk through the door today and the history is tangible: tiled walls, long wooden benches, and marble counters recall a London that has largely vanished from the surrounding streets. Arments has fed the local community through two World Wars, the Festival of Britain, and the 2012 Olympics, and is now run by a fourth generation of the family. In 2013, locals voted to have a new building on the Aylesbury Estate named “Arments Court” in recognition of the shop’s contribution to the neighbourhood — a rare honour for a family pie shop.
True to tradition, Arments still makes its pie and mash the old way, following family recipes handed down through 4 generations. The Beef Steak, and Steak & Kidney pies, with their traditional crispy tops and soft suet bottoms, don’t need to hide behind fillers, colourings, beef stock or gravy – they’re made of 100% high grade beef steak that speaks for itself. The mash is made using quality potatoes, a pinch of salt, and nothing else — no butter, no milk. It’s small details, but one that speaks to the shop’s wider commitment to doing things exactly as they always have. Traditionally served with liquor and a little chilli vinegar and black pepper. For those who love jellied and stewed eels, Arments use eels that are sustainably sourced, chopped and then boiled in a spicy stock.
Why Pie and Mash Still Matters
Pie and mash shops are far rarer than they once were; many of the East End’s classic houses have closed as the communities they served have changed. But where they survive, they draw a striking mix of customers: elderly regulars who’ve been coming for decades, sitting alongside curious first-timers and tourists chasing an authentic taste of old London. Arments has even leaned into modern habits, offering ordering online and delivery of postal pie boxes so displaced Londoners and pie enthusiasts around the UK can still get their fix.
That blend of continuity and adaptation is really the secret to pie and mash’s staying power. It’s comfort food in the truest sense — cheap, hearty, and unpretentious — but it’s also a direct, edible link to London’s working-class history. Every plate served at a shop like Arments carries with it the memory of dockers, market traders, and generations of Londoners who came before. In a city that changes faster than almost any other, that’s worth savouring.
