The Sun Almost Set. The Sun Has Set.
- Stewart
- 5 minutes ago
- 6 min read
It's been over four weeks since the last post about the Sorn Inn and in that time it has had twenty-seven views, with two of those views being me. The arrival of the notices for the renewal of the domain registration and the hosting fee set me thinking. Is it worth continuing? Would the money be better spent on beer and bike bits? Seven views per week and that rate will only diminish. Whilst the ten thousand plus hits on the post about the lost Chesterfield Arms in Cubley is a bit of an outlier helped, no doubt, by folk stumbling across it whilst searching for Roy Wood, quite a few other earlier posts have hit four figures and, whilst those posts are now several years old, the probability of any recent post getting anywhere near that level is about zero.
With under five per cent of subscribers reading recent posts, perhaps it's time to simply let the sun set on www.bygoneboozers.com? I had produced a farewell post about, appropriately, the Farewell Inn in Rochdale and then, in the space of two days, I had three new subscribers. I did some more thinking. The actual annual cost of the site was roughly equivalent to half a pint a week in the Duke of York or, according to a piece I read recently, about a pint a month in some London pubs and, after all, producing the odd post did give me something to do when it was too wet, too cold, too windy to get out on the bike. The very fact that you're reading this means that I've fallen on the side of producing more of this drivel, at least for the next twelve months.
The above thinking isn't the only thinking that I've been doing. The recent Big Birthday let loose thoughts about where I was, and what I was doing, around previous ages which ended in a zero. At one of those ages, half a century ago, I frequently travelled back and forth from north Wales to London to stay with the inamorata of the day, who was a student nurse at one of the city's hospitals. Whilst she was on the wards I would sometimes wander around the local area and pop into a pub for a pint before meeting up with her as she came out of work. One such pub we have met before, namely the Queen Adelaide on Uxbridge Road, actually reopened but seems to have closed once more. Another establishment I graced with one of these fleeting visits was the Sun on Askew Road in Shepherds Bush. Just a ten minute stroll from her front door, past the still serving Crown & Sceptre and Orange Tavern, the Sun had been standing for at least two and a half centuries before I crossed its threshold, even if its address may have changed: Starch Green, Victoria Road, Plantation Place, Askew Road (116 and 1200...
At least that's what's often said, but there is a thought that the Sun may have been confused in early records with another hostelry. The National Library of Scotland's overlay of the Ordnance Survey's plan from 1850, which can be viewed by clicking here, doesn't show any building at the Sun's location...
...and I can find no mention of the pub in the 1851 census either, so perhaps the mix up with another pub is a possibility.
The Sun does however get named in the 1861 head count when it is being run by Betsy Driver.
At the following census, on 2nd April 1871, one William Chapman is mine host...
...but three months later he's moving on, to be replaced by William Hall as reported in the Morning Advertiser of 5th July.
Just how long this William remained at the Sun I don't know, but by 1881 the Sun's landlord is Reuben Wash.
Here's a photo of the Sun from around that time...
...and here's a picture of Reuben. It's always nice to put a face to a name.
Unlike a large proportion of publicans in this era, Reuben was in the job for life, moving from the Sun to the Three Kings on North End Road (now the Famous Three Kings) in West Kensington and becoming a trustee of the Licensed Victualler's Protection Society of London. Reuben sold the Sun Tavern to a John Williams at the end of 1891, as reported in the West London Observer on 26th December...
...and the Bayswater Chronicle of 16h January 1892 records the licence transfer.
In 1897, the lease for the property was bought by Charrington's. John Williams probably moved out at this point, if he hadn't done so earlier. In any case, by April the following year the licence was being transferred once again, from an Arthur Warner Ferris to a Henry William Clapp at the Kensington Petty Sessions on 5th April 1898, as reported in the West London Observer three days later.
This is not the only time that Mr. Clapp gets his name in the local rag. Within a few weeks of taking on the Sun he appears again. This time in the edition of 27th May which has this account of a trial at the West London Police Court, which sat before Mr. Lane Q.C. on Monday 21st May. It seems that his tenure may not have started too smoothly.
Did William Clapp have more difficulties? That we do not know, but he'd certainly moved on by the time of the 1901 census which shows that Joseph Worton is now in residence.
Joseph must've liked the Sun for he was the tenant when Charrington's bought the property's freehold in 1913 and was still there at the time of the next census. In fact he didn't leave until early in 1920 when the licence was transferred to William Clinch in time for him to appear in the 1920/21 directory of Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush.
In 1922, plans were submitted for alterations to the Sun and these must've been approved at some point for its appearance changed to this. The photograph having been taken by the architectural survey team looking at Charrington's pub estate.
After over a decade in the Sun, in 1932, William Clinch moved on to be replaced by Claude Sparkes. This proved to be a good move for William and not quite such a good one for Claude as, on the 25th September 1940, shortly before closing time, a group of Hermann Göring's minions was was passing overhead and the Sun took a direct hit.
There are various accounts of the death toll, but both Claude and his wife Gladys were killed.
After the war a new house was eventually built and reopened for business on 15th March 1960 with its new tenant, Henry Robbins. It seems that the National Brewery Heritage Trust have removed the Creative Commons licences from their images of Charrington's pubs that are still in copyright and, as I'm not paying £65 for a licence to use one, if you want to see what the new pub looked like in 1960 you can click here. However, Ewan Munro's image from 2008 is free to use.
The Sun closed in 2012...
...before being demolished the following year, to be replaced by a couple of retail spaces.
But the Sun hasn't been forgotten. If you look closely at the left hand edge of the building in the above image you can just see this blue plaque taken from LondonRemembers.com. If you click on the image below it will take you to that site's page remembering the Sun.
So the sun set on Askew Road's Sun Tavern and the sun almost set on bygoneboozers.com, but it plods on for now. That post on the Farewell Inn still sits in the drafts folder.
Thanks to Stewart Ritchie for the image of Reuben Wash.
Ewan Munro's images are copyright and are reused under this licence.
The Ordnance Survey map extract is copyright and has been reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland under the terms of this CC BY licence.
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