// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Home of oldest restaurant given to National Trust
Rules is an "outstanding example of living history", the National Trust said
The home of London's oldest restaurant, which has hosted famous faces from Charles Dickens to Madonna over the past two centuries, has been given to the National Trust.
Rules originally opened in 1798 at 34-35 Maiden Lane in Covent Garden and has outlasted empires, survived the Blitz and fought off development plans.
The £11m freehold gift of the restaurant building along with its historic collection such as visitor books, menus, photographs will now be protected for future generations, the National Trust said.
Rules restaurant will continue to trade, while becoming a commercial tenant of the charity. Under the deal, the rent payments will go towards conserving the building.
Owner J-P Mayhew said the National Trust would protect the restaurant's future
Rules, which has well-preserved interior, has welcomed generations of high profile figures from Charles Dickens to Charlie Chaplin, as well as Edward VII, who would meet with his mistresses there, and stars David Bowie, Liza Minnelli and Harrison Ford.
It was favourite spot for poet John Betjeman, who once gave an impassioned speech in defence of the restaurant when it was under threat of redevelopment.
Writer Graham Greene was known to enjoy birthday meals there and featured it in his novel The End Of The Affair.
Hilary McGrady, director-general of the National Trust, said: "This place is an outstanding piece of living history, with its corners where kings dined and writers and politicians plotted, and the traditions it kept alive through wars and upheaval.