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Date of photo: 2022	Picture source: Colin Price
The Fox & Hounds was situated at 56 Royal Hill. This small Charrington's pub was later taken over by Meantime and renamed the Greenwich Union. It was next door to a Young's pub, the Richard I, and by 2022 Young's took over the Fox and merged the two pubs into one, calling it the Richard I. In the above photo the Fox would have been the brown fronted part of the pub and the original Richard I the white fronted part.
Young’s have finished incorporating the former Union Tavern, previously the Fox & Hounds, into the Richard the First in Greenwich (SE10 8RT). The works were primarily carried out at the Union Tavern, so the main part of the building retains its Grade II listing. Curiously, it is recorded by Heritage England as the Tolly Public House, it having been owned by Tolly Cobbold of Ipswich at the time it was first listed in June 1973.
London Drinker magazine, December 2022/January 2023
My first recollections of this pub came in the late 1970s when I and a group of friends used to do a "Greenwich circuit" on a Sunday lunchtime. This involved getting to Royal Hill as near to the 12.00 opening time as possible, and getting in as many pubs as we could before the 2 p.m. closing time. One of these pubs was the Fox. I believe that it was a Bass house (my memory isn't what it was) and was nearly always empty. The beer was "drinkable" and there were candles in bottles on each table. It was a bit lacking in character, although it was one of the first pubs we would go to, so maybe it was a little early. Some years later (late 80's), I had the incredible fortune to move into a house in Blissett Street (like an extension of Royal Hill). It was like heaven - a street which was 400 yards long, containing 5 very different pubs. The Fox seemed to be the same, and suffered because of the "Tolly Shop" nextdoor. Then, one day the news came out that a new couple were to take on the Fox. We all thought this to be a crazy idea, as the Tolly was so well established. The new owners (Joe and Micky an Irish couple and extremely personable) opened up just at the beginning of summer (1988/89 ?). They changed from Bass to (I think) London Pride and opened the back garden. They then proceeded to run daily barbies served with baked potatoes etc. Talk about the luck of the Irish! It was the most beautiful summer in years. Their pricing was bang on (i.e. so reasonable that you could afford to eat there most days), the craic was good and mein hosts were an absolute delight. It was a total case study in how to turn a pub around. For customers, this was a "win/win" situation. Two excellent pubs (Fox and Tolly), with very different characters, right nextdoor to each other. I believe that they also (later) took on The Mitre (also in Greenwich).
Chris Pugh (March 2024)
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