Crispin and Crispianus, Strood

What happened

The Crispin and Crispianus stands at the foot of Strood Hill on the old Watling Street, named for the patron saints of shoemakers and long said to have been a meeting place for their guild. Historians differ on its age. A document held at Medway Archives takes the origins back to a jettied, thatched dwelling house of 1203, while Historic England dates the surviving fabric to the early seventeenth century with later alterations and lists it Grade II. The Kent pub archives record licensees from Stanley Collins in 1828, and a Maidstone Gazette report of 1830 describes a pedlar who had lodged at the public house for nine years. Charles Dickens knew it on walks from his home at Higham and put it into The Uncommercial Traveller in 1860. It closed for renovation in 2010, and in March 2011 a fire KentOnline reported as arson destroyed the roof and most of the timber-framed interior.

What is there now

A boarded-up listed building at 8 London Road, still recognisably a pub from the street. It was bought at auction in 2012 and re-roofed, and work began in 2021 on a conversion to bed and breakfast rooms with a pub, restaurant and tea room below. CAMRA has recorded it as closed since January 2011 and awaiting reopening.

Sources

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