The Royal Oak (pub sign), 265 Kingston Road
Introduction
The photograph on this page of The Royal Oak (pub sign), 265 Kingston Road by P L Chadwick as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
The Royal Oak (pub sign), 265 Kingston Road
Image: © P L Chadwick Taken: 14 Aug 2010
The sign is on a post, in the pub's beer garden. A lot of pubs in England are named the Royal Oak, to celebrate the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The significance of the oak being that, before the restoration, the future King Charles II spent most of one day, hiding in an oak tree from Oliver Cromwell's Parliamentarian troops. His birthday of May 29th was still celebrated by many people up to the end of the 19th century. So pubs continued to be given the name of Royal Oak, even when they were opened a hundred or two hundred years later. Today, for better or worse, the day has lost its significance, probably because the 29th May ceased to be a public holiday some time in the 1850's. This particular pub has certainly been here since the 1830's. For other photos of The Royal Oak, please see:- Image
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.308695
Longitude
-0.3323