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Date of photo: 1981	Picture source: Peter Preston
The Railway Tavern was situated at 116 West India Dock Road and was a famous docklands pub popular with dockers and merchant seamen. It was more commonly known as Charlie Brown's after the landlord and was eventually renamed Charlie Brown's. Charlie had built up a considerable collection of curios and artefacts from the seamen until his death in 1932. Charlie's son, Charlie Jnr, ran the nearby Blue Posts, later called the Buccaneer, and in 1938 took over the Roundabout  in London E18. In the late 1980s both the Buccaneer and the Railway Tavern/Charlie Brown's were demolished as part of the Docklands Railway Expansion scheme.
Colin Price
I used to go there for a drink between 1963/67 and it was a scary place. There were large Chinese jars about three and a half feet high and smaller ones, we were told that the Chinese used to put their children in them and leave them till they became deformed and then break them so they could go begging for them. They also had some awful jars filled with foetus's and all sort of animals bones etc., There was also a stuffed dark brown bear, the whole place was very creepy, but we were sad to hear that it had been demolished. I wonder what happened to all the stuff that, undoubtedly Charlie Brown collected.
Dawn Stewart (October 2015)
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Other Photos
Some of Charlie Brown's curios