George and Dragon (Exeter Street)

It stood on Exeter Street, the ancient route east, and backed onto Lower Street on what is now a clear site (but for a bit of foliage), on the south side of Exeter Street, just before it joins the newer eastern route, the main, dual carriageway heading east towards Prince Rock.

Dating back to the very early part of the nineteenth century, and perhaps even earlier than that the pub had a name that commemorated the country’s patron saint George and his legendary, but mythical, fight with a dragon to rescue a fair maiden. George lived in the third or fourth century, but the story of his heroic feat didn’t appear until hundreds of years after his death in The Golden Legend: or Lives of the Saints, compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa in 1275, later translated into English by William Caxton and published by him in 1483.

Licensees

1823 - William Baggs
1844 - Richard Hodge
1862 - G Hannaford
1888 - William Chaffe
1898 - J Willis
1901 - Mrs Willis
1903 - W Cotton
1910 - GVD Lean