Swan & Sugarloaf

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The Swan and Sugarloaf is a large old pub in South Croydon in South London, in a prominent position on the Brighton Road.

The present impressive building dates from late Victorian times. There is a theory that the unusual name of the Swan and Sugarloaf is the result of a misunderstanding of the coat of arms of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which shows a mitre (shaped roughly like a loaf of sugar) and a crosier (shaped like a crook, which could be taken for a swan's neck). An ingenious story, but probably nonsense: an alternative theory is that the sugarloaf was a common sign for a grocers', and that if the Swan Inn also sold groceries it would have had two signs, or one that combined the two symbols.