Home > Cambridgeshire > Swaffham Bulbeck > Royal Oak Royal Oak
Date of photo: 1989	Picture source: Michael Croxford
The Royal Oak was situated at Commercial End and is now in commercial use. A 17th century grade-II listed pub, it eventually closed in 1989.
The pub was known as Blind Bob’s as the Landlord, Bob Scrutton, as the name suggests, was blind. I drank there one Sunday and he was serving the customers despite his disability.
Michael Croxford (March 2020)
My son danced with the local morris men and this was their pub. The night the pub closed down the morris men took off their bells and danced down the street to the sound of a drum with no music. It was very moving and eerie in the twilight. One dark evening some of the locals skinned a duck in the pub whilst Bob was busy elsewhere and a traveller put his head around the door and wondered what he had walked into. One of his locals I was told was an abdicated Russian Prince who had moved to the village. Bob knew by the sound of the pubs front door and your footsteps who had entered the pub. The pubs owners Greene King changed the door and Bob was flummoxed for quite a time until he got used to the door.
David Ellis (June 2023)
From: An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the County of Cambridgeshire, 1968
Royal Oak, of two storeys, white brick with slated hipped roof, was built in the early C19. Inside the partitions have been removed. In the C19 (c 1820), a two-storey clunch-built range was added on the E to form an L-shaped plan. There are two internal twin chimney stacks on the N and a staircase at the W end which serves an assembly room on the first floor.
Listed building details:
Public house, early C19 with rear range of separate build but similar date. Gault brick with low pitched, hipped roof of slate with end stacks. The one to the right hand has been cut down. Double pile plan. Two storeys. Symmetrical elevation of three recessed hung sashes of sixteen panes each. Central doorway in round headed arch. Rear range is of clunch with some brick. Steeply pitched, tiled roof. Two storeys. The ground floor windows are C20 but three at first floor are original recessed hung sashes of twelve panes each.
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Name Dates Comments Paul Scrutton 1965/1989 I was the son of landlord blind Bob (Robert Scrutton) and the landlady was my mother (Vera Scrutton.)
Other Photos
Picture source: Tony Lewis
Date of photo: 1989	Picture source: Michael Croxford