Britain’s greatest naval hero, Admiral Lord Nelson, was undoubtedly Merton’s most famous resident in his last years, living with Lady Hamilton at Merton Place near the site of today’s South Wimbledon tube station.
Until a few years ago a string of local pubs honoured him with connected names but one by one they have been disappearing from the scene.
Ordnance Survey map of the same site in 1869 with the former Merton Place estate clearly marked out
In 2005 the Victory at Collier’s Wood inexplicably changed its name to the Collier’s Tup. It is not clear who decided on this name but if they had looked up the word ‘tup’ in the dictionary they might not have chosen it.
The pub has since been renamed again the Charles Holden after the architect of Collier’s Wood tube station.
The Victory was of course Nelson’s flagship at the great Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 so it is doubly surprising that the pub’s name was changed in 2005, the very year of the bicentenary when all things Nelsonian were being celebrated around the country.
The Emma Hamilton pub at Wimbledon Chase closed in 2010 and was demolished to make way for a block of flats, now under construction.
The Princess Royal in Abbey Road, SW19 also closed in 2010 and although it was probably named after Queen Victoria’s first daughter who was born in 1840, the sign-painter obviously thought it had a Nelson connection and painted a ship. Nelson’s fleet did include a vessel with this name in 1795 but he was captain of the Agamemnon at the time.
Then in April this year the Trafalgar in High Path, SW19 closed down. It had been there since at least 1868, surviving two world wars and a major housing redevelopment. However, there has been talk of it reopening and if it does let us hope it retains its name.
There is a modern pub named Kiss Me Hardy in the Priory retail park at Collier’s Wood but it lacks the history of most of the other Nelson-related pubs in the area. The Nelson Arms in Merton High Street, for example, was built in 1829, within 25 years of the man’s death.
Now it is the last remaining pub in SW19 connected with him. Although Britain as a whole has many others, this is the only one built on land that once belonged to the admiral himself. It is near the site of the entrance to his estate.
Merton High Street a century after Nelson’s death, running right across the former Merton Place estate. This was 20 years before South Wimbledon station opened on the right hand side
Every time we lose a local pub – and it is happening with increasing regularity – we lose a little bit of local history.
Since the Grove Tavern opposite South Wimbledon station closed (see Heritage story 16 December 2011), it is unlikely that anyone will be prompted to find out that just across the road was once the Merton Grove estate, home of Sir Richard Hotham, Nelson’s predecessor at Merton Place.
He moved next door in 1803 when the admiral and Emma Hamilton arrived. We do, of course, have other local reminders of Nelson, not least the names of roads off Merton High Street – Hamilton, Hardy, Nelson, Trafalgar and Victory – although the Nelson Hospital has also gone now. But it would be a great shame if the last of the pubs with a Nelson connection were to go.
By Clive Whichelow, author of Pubs of Merton (Past & Present).
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