A Highgate pub site where a landlord once saved Queen Victoria from a runaway carriage is on the market for £2.95m.
The 130-year-old building at the top of Highgate West Hill is currently in use as The Summit, a complementary health centre, with its 11 rooms rented by analysts and therapists. It comes with a kitchen, bathroom and basement rooms, along with a loft and courtyard parking — and planning permission to convert it into a residential home.
But the building’s real value lies in its past. Back in 1837, the site was home to a small tavern called the Fox under the Hill — and on 6 July that year, just 14 days after she came to the throne, Queen Victoria and her mother were travelling down Highgate West Hill in a four-horse carriage when the horses bolted.
It was the landlord, James Turner, who saved the day. He grabbed the reins and brought the carriage to a halt, sparing the young Queen from injury — or worse. A shocked Victoria rested in the pub’s yard after the incident, and in gratitude she granted Turner permission to display the Royal Coat of Arms in the pub.
Turner did just that, changing the pub’s name to The Fox and Crown — the name the site is still remembered by today.
The original alehouse, which dated from the early 1700s, closed in 1895 and was demolished a year later. The replacement building at 40 Highgate West Hill dates from 1898 and carries a brick relief plaque with an inscription noting its origins as the site of The Fox and Crown.
The property is on the market with Day Morris for £2,950,000. With 11 rooms and planning permission already in place to turn it into a home, it is being sold as a rare chance to own a piece of Highgate’s history — and to live next to one of London’s grandest addresses. It stands right next to Witanhurst, the second largest private residence in London after Buckingham Palace.
The sale is the latest chapter for a neighbourhood that wears its history openly. A new art gallery recently opened on Highgate’s lower slopes, and the area’s pubs remain at the heart of its story. In nearby Hampstead, the Vine pub has been given a revamp and reopened, showing that the capital’s historic pubs can still find new life.
Victoria had been queen for just a fortnight when the rescue happened. She had come to the throne on 20 June 1837, and on 6 July she was travelling with her mother, the Duchess of Kent, when the horses bolted on the steep descent of Highgate West Hill. The hill’s gradient is what made the runaway so dangerous — and what made Turner’s quick thinking so remarkable. The permission to display the Royal Coat of Arms was a mark of royal favour, and Turner wore it proudly, renaming his tavern for the crown it had served. The brick relief plaque on the building still tells the story to anyone walking past 40 Highgate West Hill, recording that the site was once The Fox and Crown. And Highgate itself is one of north London’s best-known villages, perched on a hill above the city — the property’s position at the top of West Hill puts it at the heart of it.
For now, the building’s next chapter is unwritten. Whether it becomes a family home or stays in commercial use, its plaque will keep telling the story of the day a pub landlord saved a queen — and of the name, The Fox and Crown, that the rescue gave it.
