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Prince Of Wales

 


The Prince Of Wales was situated at 84 Bohemia Road.

 
Richard Moy was the first landlord and applied for a full licence in 1863 and 1864. He moved here from The Cross Keys in Marylebone c1860. The Prince Of Wales was the second fully licenced pub in Bohemia after The Wheatsheaf in 1835.
A coroners inquest was held at the pub in 1872 into the 'shocking suicide' of a 40 year old gardener who lived nearby in Bohemia Road. He was found by his wife hanging from a bed post by a piece of clothes line. Their 11 year old son was a witness. His father had said to him 'Goodbye, I shall be missing when you come home from school. Be a good boy to your mother and go to school'. The inquest concluded that he had 'committed suicide whilst in a state of temporary insanity'. He was buried in Bohemia graveyard.
During WWII the pub was run by Roland 'Jack' Berwick. Roland worked as a 'Gentlemans Gentleman' for an American millionaire before the war and ran the pub from 1944 until his death in 1946. His widow, Maggie May Berwick took over until 1948.
The pub closed in 1971 and the building became the home of Gwen Watford, an English film, stage and television actress. Watford trained at the Old Vic and made her film debut playing Lady Usher in The Fall Of The House Of Usher (1949). Other films include Cleopatra (1963) and Cry Of Freedom (1987). After her death in 1994 the building became the home of the Hastings Labour Party.
Bohemia Village Voice - November 2010 edition

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