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Where Was 'The Duke of Marlborough'?

Monday 3 February 2025

Our Museum Curator Dave Armitage noticed some comments in Wynn Everett's memoir (now back in stock) concerning an 'unknown' pub called The Duke of Marlborough. She said the pub was located at 'Suicide Corner', where the A5 meets the A41, and was owned by Sir Trevor Dawson of Edgwarebury House fame who half-timbered it. Not knowing the pub himself, its exact location hung around in the Museum atmosphere for a couple of years until confirmation of 'Suicide Corner' came from a wartime bus schedule and an old map just last week.

So our new Trustee, John Cartledge, set to work with his extensive knowledge of maps and found a building near where the Corner would be when the Watford By-Pass was built, marked as a 'BH' or 'Beer House' on the OS map of 1913. As he said 'Eureka' - there was the 'Duke'. Probably built originally to serve the workers at the 'Brick Works' shown on the map, the building was still there on the 1935 map though no longer labelled as a 'BH' (the Brick Works had gone too). Trevor Dawson died in 1931 and the Brick Works closed, so the pub may have reverted to a dwelling house. It shows on the 1939 aerial photo of The Line That Never Was.

And today? It's under the M1 now. We have no photos of the building and it's just about out of living memory. Does anyone have any knowledge of the pub? And why was a roundabout on the Watford By-Pass called 'Suicide Corner'? Reach us via our email!




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