The Royal Oak - Swallowcliffe, Wiltshire - Pictorial Pub Signs on Waymarking.com

Pub sign for The Royal Oak in Swallowcliffe.

"Royal Oak: After the Battle of Worcester (1651) in the English Civil War, the defeated Prince Charles escaped the scene with the Roundheads on his tail. He managed to reach Bishops Wood in Staffordshire, where he found an oak tree (now known as the Boscobel Oak near Boscobel House). He climbed the tree and hid in it for a day while his obviously short-sighted pursuers strolled around under the tree looking for him. The hunters gave up, Prince Charles came down and escaped to France (the Escape of Charles II). He became Charles II on the Restoration of the Monarchy. To celebrate this good fortune, 29 May (Charles' birthday) was declared Royal Oak Day and the pub name remembers this. The Royal Naval ship HMS Royal Oak gets its name from the same source. Early ships were built of the heartwood of oak."

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"The Royal Oak started life as a tannery and although the precise date of the building's construction is unknown, one of the chimney stacks bears the date 1705 and it is known to have been in use as a tannery by 1707.

The tannery works were a contributing factor in the decision to move St Peter's Church from it's position directly to the west of the building, to where it stands today. The works owned the watercourses at the back of (what is today) The Royal Oak garden and their use contributed to the regular flooding of the old church.

The owner of the tannery, Thomas Wright, eventually abandoned the tanning business and turned the building into an ale house, first opening the doors of The Royal Oak in 1852. It was said that Wright made few changes to the interior of the building after switching trades and that it remained unchanged for many years after new landlords took on the business. The pub remained a constant and important part of village life for over a century, until it closed in 2007.

Although the interior of the pub today is a far cry from the ale house in a former tannery, the exterior has barely changed since the bilding's construction in 1705."

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Date of first pub on site: 1852 Name of Artist: Not listed Date of current sign: Not listed

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