From The Jolly Taxpayer in Plymouth to The Moody Cow in Herefordshire and The Black Boy Inn in Caernarfon, Wales (they may want to rethink that one), Britain doesn’t lack for colourful and quirky pub names. There are, after all, approximately 50,000 establishments throughout the land that require identification.
And every name tells a story (the Black Boy refers to Welsh miners, btw).
Pub names – and their signs, which in the past signalled to illiterate patrons – derive from a wide variety of sources: Royalty/famous people, historic events, myths, landmarks, literature, occupations/guilds, owners, hunting, animals, plants, sports, and, even presumably from some silly or half-pissed patrons (remember the Boaty McBoatface incident?)
Who ye John Snow? The 19th-century epidemiologist, of course. The Duke of this and the Duchess of that — let’s do some research. Others are just plain bizarre. The Pyrotechnic’s Arms in southeast London or The Bucket of Blood in Cornwall. Really?
Yet, if one frequents pubs in Britain, odds are that you’ve found yourself in a Red Lion, which rates as the most popular pub name in the country (there’s around 550 of them). According to Culture Trip in the UK, the name likely hearkens to the heraldry of John of Gaunt, who lived during the 1300s, and “gained popularity when James VI and I (the son of Mary Queen of Scots) was in power and dictated that the red lion – a centrepiece of the Royal Banner of Scotland – be displayed on pubs and important buildings.”
(For what it’s worth, Red Lion pubs can also be found across Canada, from Ajax, Ont., to West Vancouver).
Following The Red Lion, the British Beer and Pub Association rates the following as the most popular pub names in the UK (as of 2018): Royal Oak, White Hart, Rose and Crown, King’s Head, King’s Arms, Queen’s Head, and The Crown.
For something a little more singular (and less pompous), there are these London-area pubs:
• The Ten Bells pub is located in the east end area where the unidentified serial killer nicknamed Jack the Ripper is thought to have murdered at least five women in 1888 and where for around 12 years in the 1970s and 80s a landlord changed the pub’s name to the “The Jack the Ripper.”
• The Sherlock Holmes is named after the fictional 19th century detective who lived at 221B Baker Street on Northumberland Street, in Charing Cross, central London.
• The Churchill Arms pub was renamed after Britain’s World War II Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
• The Blackfriar was built in 1875 on the site of a Dominican friary.
• The Hole in the Wall pub is housed in railway arches by Waterloo Station.
• The World’s End is a traditional place name for a boundary or the edge of an urban area.
• The Cricketers pub has been serving beer since 1770 and faces onto a green where cricket has been played since the 17th century
• The Faltering Fullback refers to the rugby fullback position.
• The Charlotte Despard was named after the 1844-born suffragist who campaigned for the right for women to vote in elections.
• The Walrus & The Carpenter pub references the Lewis Carroll poem recited by the characters Tweedledee and Tweedledum in “Through the Looking-Glass.”
• Formerly the Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales pub was renamed after the death of Princess Diana in 1997.
• The Mayflower takes its name from the famed ship that set sail from Rotherhithe, via Southampton and Plymouth in 1620 and carried the Pilgrims to America.
• Not to be confused with the Game of Thrones character, The John Snow pub honours the physician who 1854 tracked down a water pump as the drinking water source of a cholera outbreak that killed more than 500 people. A replica of the pump stands nearby.
And consider some of these eccentric establishments: The Bull and Spectacles, The Drunken Duck, Sir Loin of Beef, The Goat and Tricycle, Bunch of Carrots, The Famous Cock (maybe rethink that one too?), The Bo Peep, I Am the Only Running Footman, and My Father’s Moustache.
We don’t even want to know…
“Pub Crawl” is an ongoing series in which we reveal some of our favourite public houses, both at home and abroad – and, in the spirit of the establishment, invite you to share with us yours. Send suggestions to baginski@travelindustrytoday.com.