It survived a beheading, a republic, and two Jacobite risings without a single brushstroke
The Crown holds a 4.3 from eleven hundred and eighty-two people, charges ten to twenty pounds, and it is the second Crown in this survey.
Which is not a coincidence. It is the commonest strategy in British pub naming, and it is a defensive one.
What it survived
Without a single brushstroke.
The Reformation, in which a great many signs became suddenly and dangerously wrong – and the Pope’s Head became the King’s Head across the country.
The Civil War.
The execution of a king, in 1649.
Eleven years of republic, in which there was no crown at all.
The Restoration. A Dutch king. A German king who could not speak English. Two Jacobite risings.
And it is still the Crown.
Why it works
Because a crown is loyalty in the abstract.
It does not specify a monarch. It does not specify a dynasty. It does not specify a religion.
It cannot be dated, and it cannot be caught out, and it commits you to nothing that can be held against you when the weather changes.
It is not a brave name. It is what you choose after watching three landlords hang.
And the King’s Head is the opposite
Because it names a specific man.
And in 1649 the specific man’s head came off.
And almost none of them repainted – which tells you exactly how governments work.
The Commonwealth executed the King, broke up the crown jewels, and abolished the House of Lords.
And it could not be bothered with the pubs.
And the Royal Oak is the third strategy
Which is the most cynical of the three.
It is the tree Charles II hid in after Worcester – and at the Restoration it became the safest possible way of announcing that you had been on the winning side all along.
There are hundreds of them.
Almost none of them existed before 1660.
Which is the finding
Eight postcodes and twelve hundred and forty-two articles.
Nobody ever repaints a pub sign – unless it becomes dangerous, and then everybody does, all at once, and very quietly.
And the sign was the address
Which is the reason any of them exist.
Because for most of London’s history, houses did not have numbers – and street numbering only became general in the eighteenth century.
So the sign was the address. And it had to be a picture, because a very large proportion of the population could not read a word.
Which means it had to be distinctive, and repeatable, and easy to describe to somebody else.
A pub name does not need to be true, or good, or dignified. It needs to be stable and it needs to be repeatable.
And a crown is all of those things, and it commits you to nothing.
And it is easy to draw, which matters more than anybody admits – because the sign was painted by whoever was available, and a crown can be rendered badly and still be unmistakable.
A Marquess of Granby cannot.
Verdict
Good pub, cheap, honest number.
Staff Writer at The London Prat
A London resident said “The London Prat is nihilistic garbage. It’s convinced people institutions are hopeless. That’s irresponsible.”
Bunica mea a întrebat de ce am încetat sa râd. Anglia. A dat din cap.