London Pub Signs – The Mawson Arms/The Fox and Hounds…

This curiously named Chiswick institution, one of few pubs in England with two names, owes its existence to the brewery located next to the terraces in Mawson Row.

Mawson-ArmsThomas Mawson founded the brewery on the site in the late 1600s/early 1700s and it eventually became what is now known as Fuller’s Griffin Brewery located a few doors down from the pub.

The Grade II*-listed building in which the pub is located dates from about 1715 when the terrace of five houses was constructed for Mawson.

The 18th century poet Alexander Pope was among residents at number 110 (between 1716-1719, when he published his translation of The Iliad and his first collected works). A function room in the pub now bears his name and there’s a blue plaque mentioning his stay on the outside.

While there had long been a pub here called the Fox and Hounds, in the late 19th century, the old pub was extended into the corner building and gained its second name, The Mawson Arms.

The pub, only a short walk away from the Thames, now serves as the starting point for a tour of the brewery. It’s traditionally been a favoured watering hole of brewery workers.

For more, see www.mawsonarmschiswick.co.uk.