Comments on: London’s Oldest Buns

By: Malcolm

Malcolm — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 08:37:12 +0000

I remember the time when almost the entire ceiling was covered with nets full of buns. This was before the devastating fire that destroyed most of them. I went to school in Bow, at Cooper’s Grammar School and we all knew the story of the Widow’s Son. I went there quite often with a couple of friends who lived nearby, it was a lovely place, a real community pub. It’s such a shame that places like this are being demolished to make way for ever more ghastly blocks of flats. I hope it survives.

By: David j Gabriel

David j Gabriel — Fri, 03 Apr 2015 08:34:09 +0000

I had my first pint in there at the grand age of 15 light & bitter you got well over a pint for your money no questions asked 45 years ago now I do feel old we used to play shove ha’penny never no good at it though

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 02 Apr 2015 13:35:05 +0000

Cannot this pub be designated as a community asset under recent legislation? Or even listed?
It needs to be protected as a pub not another block of flats.

By: Jo

Jo — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 20:28:14 +0000

My family passed a hot cross bun with a label giving a date from the Victorian era down through several generations. Unfortunately it was lost in my mother’s later years.

By: Shawdiane

Shawdiane — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 11:20:31 +0000

What an extraordinary story! This for me, has to be the best tale I have read on the Gentle Author. Immediately you have the images building up of a loving mother heartbroken that her only son has gone away to sea & is believed drowned. With her husband also dead, she is totally alone & for her son to be lost at sea is like the end of her life. To comfort herself & give her the strength to go on, each year this mother bakes her missing son a Hot Cross Bun (a symbol of hope). So there we have a net of rotting buns depicting living, death & hope, hanging in her house. The flies & the rotting dust must have been horrendous, especially in the summer heat, but these buns mean the resurection of life to this poor lonely woman. She has gone to these lengths in the hope her son will come back to her & eventually he does. But hey! yes he come back home – but how cruel, why did this son neglect his mother by never writing to her or visiting her over those missing years? Never letting her know he was alive? There is so much to this tale, representing the complexities of life. And the food of a mothers love.

I love these old tales & traditions. Fascinating to think the pub is supposedly built over her cottage in the shape of a ship. Even today saliors congregate each year to this same spot to add the little bun of hope, of life & of love.

The photos are wonderful. Thank you for sharing. And may all the men & women at sea return home to their families.

By: Achim

Achim — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 10:00:18 +0000

“A Widow’s Son of Bromley by Bow” — a very nice poem for Easter time!

Love & Peace
ACHIM

By: Ten Inch Wheels

Ten Inch Wheels — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 08:09:39 +0000

Lovely.

Last time I cycled past the Widow’s Son it seemed to be closed – good to know it was just a bump in the road for this pub and this cherished tradition.

By: Philip Mernick

Philip Mernick — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 07:51:37 +0000

It’s a great tradition but for how much longer? I believe that the lease expires this year and the owners are a firm of developers. The tower blocks lining Violet Road encroach ever closer, so will the buns and sailors be back in 2016?