The Dog and Fox

The closest pub to the All England Lawn Tennis Club - enjoy!

Location: 24 High Street, Wimbledon, London, SW19 5EA

Description: The Dog and Fox is a landmark public house right in the heart of leafy Wimbledon Village, SW19.

As the closest pub to the All England Lawn Tennis Club the pub has become synonymous with the tennis, both to the crowds who stroll up the hill after a warm day in the sun, and to the players, coaches and racket stringers who have come to love the atmosphere of one of the most famous pubs in London.

The Dog & Fox is mentioned in a 1617 survey as 'The Sign of My Lords Arms an Inn by Wimbledon Pound'. It had eight rooms, two butteries, two barns and a stable. But the present building began as a farmhouse in the 18th century and the name Dog and Fox is from the same period. There were extensive out-buildings, coach houses, barns and orchards.

It was used in 1797 for meetings for Volunteers, a forerunner of the Home Guard set up to repel any Napoleonic invasion, and the land behind the inn was used to drill the men. At the annual fair, booths and stalls stretched from the Dog and Fox to the Rose and Crown, with a theatre and menagerie, but local landowners were anxious about the tone of the neighbourhood and the fair was suppressed in 1840.

In 1816, the pub was assigned, minus the fields to G. Tritton, the brewer and then in 1834 to Young’s. It was rebuilt in 1869 and set back from the road due to widening of the High Street, but it still included ‘yards, garden, coach houses, stable, granary sheds, bowling green and paddock.'

It has undergone a number of transformations over the years, most recently refurbished to a very high standard and reopened in December 2006.

It was once regularly frequented by hellraiser Oliver Reed.