King of Prussia
Yesterday morning was up rather early to get to a conference in Warwick. Opened the curtains in my front room to see three fire engines and two police cars a few doors down in front of the King of Prussia pub, which had been torched in the night. (Now, okay, maybe I’m jumping to conclusions, but the place has been derelict for over a year, so it’s hardly the case that someone left the oven on, is it?) Gave me rather a shock, especially as Jo and I, not 50 metres from all the excitement, slept soundly through it all. The full Oxford Mail report is here, with one glaring mistake - the site has no planning permission, just an intention on the part of the Co-op to apply for it at some point.
So called, by the way, because of an exceedingly unlikely story that - if I have it right - on the outbreak of the First World War, some German agricultural labourers were in the bar singing “ve shall vin”.
(There’s some old guide to all the pubs in Oxford, past and present, in which this tale is recounted. If only I could remember what it was called.)