The Milkwood Tavern was a public house that stood on the corner of Heron Road and Milkwood Road until 1966. A 99 year lease was purchased for 63 Milkwood Road on 24 June 1867 by three men : William Gilbee Habershon, Alfred Pile and James Hewitt. It was built in 1875 by Habershon & Pike and opened in 1876 and the 1st landlord was James Havil.

The next landlord was a T Barrett listed in the Post Office Directory as landlord from 1878. Mr SW Carter took over as landlord, again from the Post Office Directory and is listed through till 1919.

Extract of a newspaper report from Reynold’s Newspaper, 14 October 1900. British Newspaper Archive, British Library.

You can clearly see the Carter name on Pub Fascia in the following postcard view.

This postcard view was printed on or before 1907. Published by AW Smith, I 919

Interesting to see all the houses running down the western side of Milkwood Road where now there are only light Industrial Estates. Milkwood Road and more generally Milkwood Estate was heavily bombed during WW2, the main target being the railway line.

This is the view from today.

Photo: Nick Stevens, April 2015

Here is another postcard view from on or before 1911. No Publisher credit on card.

And the same view from 2015

Photo: Nick Stevens, April 2015

The Pub was closed in 1966 and demolished to make way for the Willowfield School which in turn was demolished in 2005 to make way for the Michael Tippett school which opened in 2008.

The Willowfield School originally shared the same site as Caldecot Primary School on Bessemer Road just in front of Kings College Hospital. Both schools were closed to allow KCH expansion including large car parks.

If you are interested in reading more about the Milkwood Estate development, there is a fantastic book published by the Herne Hill Society in 2009 titled Milkwood Estate The Story of a Lambeth Community.  It’s difficult to get hold of a physical copy however it can be read online via this link – http://issuu.com/hernehillsociety/docs/milkwood_estate