page_title: Dog and Duck, St George's Fields
section_title: The tavern
hierarchical_section_title: Dog and Duck, St George's Fields / The tavern
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the front of the tavern and adjoining buildings in St George's Fields; taken down in 1812 to make way for the new Bethlem Hospital. 1772 Etching and engraving The Trustees of the British Museum Height: 126 millimetres, Width: 195 millimetres (trimmed) Curator's comments: This is possibly an illustration to a magazine.
context_page_description: The Dog and Duck was a tavern built upon St George's Fields in London in the 17th century. It was named after the sport of duck-baiting, that took place in adjacent wetland. In the 18th century its gardens were used as a spa but, by the 1770s, with spas no longer fashionable, it declined into a rowdy location for concerts. The magistrates refused to renew its licence, despite protracted legal disputes, and it closed in 1799. The building was then used as a School for the Indigent Blind and demolished in 1812, when the new Bethlem Hospital was built upon the site. That building is now used by the Imperial War Museum.
context_section_description: In its St George's Fields location, the tavern was known to have existed in 1642. It was adjacent to a marshy area of ponds draining into the Neckinger brook, where the duck-baiting took place. The inn sign, dated 1716, was an oblong red moulding in stone composition showing a dog with a duck in its mouth. The left of the sign showed the badge of Bridge House Estates, the landowner. At its peak it was a very popular tavern and was marked on John Rocque's 1741–45 map and 1746 map of London.
  By 1695 the area was famous for its waters and so a spa was set up. When this ceased to attract business it was abandoned but other entertainments were promoted, such as an organ and skittles. David Garrick, in his prologue to the 1774 play The Maid of the Oaks, alluded to the decline –
  "St. George's Fields, with taste of fashion struck,
  
  Display Arcadia at the 'Dog and Duck';
  
  And Drury misses here, in tawdry pride,
  
  Are there 'Pastoras' by the fountain side;
  
  To frowsy bowers they reel through midnight damps,
  
  With Fawns half drunk, and Dryads breaking lamps."
  According to Edward Walford, the tavern gardens were used for popular concerts with an audience of "the riff-raff and scum of the town", which became a public nuisance. The place gained a reputation for vice, being described as "a house in which gangs of both whores and rogues were constantly associated". Highwaymen would carouse there before setting out on their depredations.   Francis Place reported that, as a boy, he had seen "two or three horses at the door of the Dog and Duck in St George's Fields on a summer evening, and people waiting to see the Highwaymen mount ... flashy women come out to take leave of the thieves at dusk and wish them success".
  In 1787, renewal of the licence was therefore refused by the Surrey magistrates following a proclamation from George III against drunkenness.  They decided "too many people assembled there of very loose character, and that it consequently became a receptacle for disorderly persons, and a place of assignation destructive of that morality which it was the duty of the law to see preserved". However, the landlord applied to the City of London magistrates, who granted a licence despite its being a house "so notorious as a resort for amusement and debauch". This led to a legal dispute between the magistrates, which was decided in 1792 against the City magistrates.
  The tavern finally lost its licence in 1799. The inn sign is now in the collection of the Cuming Museum on Walworth Road.
caption: Etching of Dog and Duck in 1772
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