Home > London > SE8 > The Fountain The Fountain

Picture source: Ian Chapman

The Fountain was situated at 36 Deptford Broadway. This pub is now used as a restaurant on the ground floor, with flats above.

My father and mother, Margaret and Tom Randall, were the licensees of the Fountain in the early fifties. This was Dad's first pub but Mum had been in the pub business many years before. I was a small child at the time and I remember little about living there. I remember the hardware shop which I believe was called Mence Smith and the small, high window in the little sweet shop round the corner from which we bought ice cream. The Broadway was always very busy and I have some 16mm film which my father shot when a royal procession went by, which I presume was the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth. Carrington House, which was next door to the pub, housed tramps and vagrants and persons of no fixed abode. The was an old guy who used to visit the pub and played with me when I was allowed downstairs in the smoky bar. It was from this chap that I contracted tuberculosis. I spent many weeks in the Bow Arrow hospital which was not very pleasant. Blacks were not allowed in the pub in those days as the locals didn't approve so Dad had to turn them away, something which he found distasteful. We left The Fountain in 1953 and I stayed with my aunts in their pub, The Bull at Birchwood, Kent. Mum and Dad took over another pub The Victoria Tavern, Isleworth which, thankfully, is still thriving.

Chris Randall (May 2016)

Do you have any anecdotes, historical information, updates or photos of this pub? Become a contributor by submitting them here. Like this site? Follow us on Make email contact with other ex-customers and landlords of this pub by adding your details to this page.