Robin Hood (St Paul's Wood Hill)

Locality
Coordinate	51.401348, 0.090681
Adm. div.	Kent, now Greater London
Vicinity	Robin Hood Cottages, St Paul's Wood Hill, Orpington; immediately S of Hoblingwell Wood, c. 100 m N of Leesons Hill
Type	Public house
Interest	Robin Hood name
Status	Defunct
First Record
A.k.a.	Robin Hood Cottages

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Robin Hood Cottages, in former centuries The Robin Hood.

Robin Hood Cottages, the quondam Robin Hood (click photo to enlarge) / Google Earth Street View.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2020-09-14. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2021-01-07. Includes information kindly contributed by Eric E. Rush.

A long defunct Robin Hood pub existed in St Paul's Cray in the 18th century. It seems to have closed in the mid-19th century. The premises, now housing businesses and private homes, still exist, under the name 'Robin Hood Cottages'.

Eric E. Rush, who brought this lost Robin Hood pub to IRHB's attention, tells us that it had a stables and was probably a coaching inn.^[1] This tallies well with the account in the book Lost Orpington & Around by Phil Waller and Tom Yeeles (2019).^[2] They note that references to the pub date back to the 1700s and that:

There was a coaching route from Chislehurst to St Mary Cray, and another from Chislehurst to Orpington. The Robin Hood Inn was on the St Mary Cray route. During the nineteenth century the coaching route to St Mary Cray was extended westward (what is now Leesons Hill) to meet the Orpington route (what is now the A208 Chislehurst Road). This effectively cut off the Robin Hood Inn to any passing traffic and therefore its prime business, leading to its closure. The Robin Hood cottages are now private dwellings tucked away down a leafy cul-de-sac off of St Paul’s Wood Hill.

The premises are a listed building, probably dating from the early 17th century, which has been converted into two private homes.^[3]