Phil Mellows is saddened by the demise of a landmark pub that was so old it survived a fall out with the King of Prussia

The King Edward VII pub on Stratford Broadway — Katie Chan, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In the final weeks of 2025 the King Edward VII, on Stratford Broadway, ceased trading. It’s just another pub casualty, of course, but places like this hold a wealth of memories for those who used it, including myself.

I spent far too many hours there while working at the Stratford Express, which occupied an office a few doors down in the late 1970s, and again in the early 1980s when, in a failed effort to escape journalism, I did a degree at North East London Poly.

Thinking about those days, I can remember so many incidents and con versations, tangible and precious moments over pints of Charrington’s IPA at the Eddie, as we called it, though my dad always referred to it as “the King of Prussia”, a name which changed in 1913, when we fell out with the Prussians.

The building, in fact, goes back two centuries before that (the doorways are a surviving feature) and is Grade II listed, which gives it some protection, yet its future as a pub is now extremely uncertain.

From what I hear, Stonegate, the owner, will have to spend a lot of money to get it into trading shape. The last time I called in, it was clearly tired and neglected. It’s not an example of a good pub suddenly closing under extreme commercial pressures. It’s a pub that’s been run down over a long period.

Yet, as well as the challenges of investing in its fabric and finding the right person to run it, wider economic conditions in 2026 are not conducive to its reopening.

Hopes that there might be substance to the government’s platitudes around support for the “great British pub”, as Chancellor Rachel Reeves called it, were dashed by the latest Budget. Publicans will face soaring business rates this year on top of the rising employment costs that have already forced many to cut staffing and reduce opening hours.

The Eddie won’t be the last to close, I fear, unless it’s recognised that pubs are not ordinary businesses that must be left to navigate the economic winds by themselves, but form a part of our social infrastructure, much like an essential utility, a vital space where future memories are made.

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