The Rose and Crown was in existence by 1659. A trade token in the Wimbledon Society Museum bears the words ‘T.E.Heburne; in Wimbledon (16)59’, and has a rose on the back; the inn was at first called the Sign of the Rose.
It was possibly established in the 1640s by Richard Betenson, the owner of Eagle House, next door to the Rose and Crown, and called the Rose because crowns were out of favour during the Civil War. A 1763 lease of Eagle House describes the mansion as house and gardens, 15 acres of land and the Rose and Crown public house, the Crown by then having been added to the name.
The Rose and Crown became a local focal point during the 18th and 19th centuries and had to be much expanded. Famous literary drinkers included Leigh Hunt and Swinburne. Leigh Hunt wrote of the Rose and Crown to his friend John Forster: ‘When I find myself in the little room with the window open and the garden before us and a glass of claret on the table, care seems to be excluded.’
Swinbourne took walks along Putney Heath and Wimbledon Common from his home in Putney Lane and was a regular at the Rose and Crown as well as the Green Man, Putney Heath. But after sketches of him drinking in the Rose and Crown appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, he took to entering the pub by a side door and sitting in a private room.
Young's first leased the pub in 1832. The Rose and Crown on the Evening Standard Pub of the Year competition in 1970. It was extended in 2002 to provide 13 hotel bedrooms.
