Home > Essex > Chigwell > Ye Olde Kings Head Ye Olde Kings Head
Ye Olde Kings Head was situated on High Road. This pub was built in 1547 and is now used as 'Sheesh', a Turkish restaurant. Described by Charles Dickens as "uch a delicious old inn opposite the churchyard".
Source: Darkstar
The following is taken from a 1930s Wills cigarette card:
'The Kings Head at Chigwell stands high in the list of Dickensian inns for it is none other than The Maypole of Barnaby Rudge. Writing to his friend John Forster, Dickens remarked that "Chigwell is the greatest place in the world, such a delicious old inn, opposite the churchyard". The house still stands very much as the novelist described it and although there are not "more gable ends than a lazy man would care to count on a sunny day" one can easily recognise the "overhanging storeys, drowsy little panes of glass, and front bulging out and projecting over the pathway. The exact date when the Kings Head was built is not known; the Court of Attachments however, was held here in 1713, and it is probable that the house was in existence a century before'.
Brian Boyle (July 2011)
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Other Photos
Date of photo: 2014	Picture source: Colin Price