Book explores the stories behind the names of London boozers

By Sam Cullen and James Potts

Ever been at your local pub and wondered to yourself, what’s the story behind its name?

As two pub enthusiasts with an interest in pubs right across London, it’s a question we both ask ourselves a lot.

Towards the end of the last lockdown, it got us thinking whether anyone had told the stories behind the capital’s pub names.

When we realised nobody had, we decided to do the job ourselves.

Our book, What’s in a London Pub Name? explains the meaning behind 656 pub names across Greater London and, in the process, shows how they can tell us so much about the capital’s social, political and cultural history.

It also features more than 100 photos of the pubs, many of which were taken, especially for the book.

Right from the start we knew we didn’t just want this book to focus on Central London locations, so we included pubs across all 32 London boroughs, as well as the City of London itself.

In particular, South London provided more than its fair share of fascinating entries, and Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark provide some of the most interesting stories in the book.

What we found as we pulled the book together is the huge variety when it comes to the inspiration behind a pub name, with South London being no exception to that.

So on one hand you have places like the Ship and Whale in Rotherhithe, recalling Greenland Dock’s role in the whaling trade back in the 18th century, and the Spanish Galleon in Greenwich, a nod to the artwork contained in the nearby Greenwich Naval College.

On the other we also cover the wave of newer pubs with their own irreverent names, like John the Unicorn in Peckham, named after the treasured cuddly toy of a former landlord’s daughter, or the Sympathetic Ear micro pub in Brixton, which reflects the sort of atmosphere the owners want to create at their venue.

Now it’s not just newer pubs that have these more left-field names, indeed one of our favourite names in the entire book is more than 100 years old, the Who’d A Thought It? In Plumstead.

The fact that the name effectively acts as the punch line for the other four pubs on the common and the accompanying pub sign, a flying pig, is precisely the sort of story we wrote the book to tell.

The examples provided above are only a tiny sample of the colourful and engaging stories we’ve captured in the book.

There are plenty more like them included from Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, as well as further afield for Greater London.

We hope you enjoy reading about the pubs as much as we enjoyed writing it.

What’s in a London Pub Name? is £8.95 and can be purchased online and other retailers.

Pictured top: Sam Cullen, left, and James Potts (Picture: James Potts)