The Kentish Drovers. There is only one other pub in London with this name – a modern pub in Peckham, standing on the site of an earlier pub with the same name. The name of both pubs is a reminder of the days when cattle had to be driven on main roads often leading to London. Drovers were a hardy breed of men who took the cattle from farms many miles from London – in this case from Kent – to the cattle markets in London, principally Smithfield Market on the west side of the City of London.
As they neared London, the drovers would rest the live-stock and let them graze for several days, sometimes weeks, to fatten them up after a long slow journey when most of the animals would have lost considerable weight and therefore lost some of their market value. The drovers knew of fields where the animals could rest and be fattened up before being sold at market. A short distance from the pub is a side street known as Drovers Place which originally had been fields, hired out to passing drovers to allow their animals to graze.
The pub is under the care of English Heritage who seem to do little to look after the building. The very beautiful mural above the pub is just falling apart when it should be look after before it is lost forever.
- Kentish Drovers & Halfway House, Commercial Way right.
- Now an Asian restaurant. 2018
- Pub Mural. >>>>>>