I still like Del Boy's explanation of Richard the Lionheart having a castle where the roundabout is now and Hannibal and his elephants attacking it.

Fascinating. I had always assumed that the "elephant and castle" was simply a snail built to military specifications.

An elephant with a castle on top is one way to sculpt the _Rook_ piece in Chess. The piece is called an "elephant" in some languages. The origin being Persian/Indian battle elephants that indeed had a crenellated structure on its back housing archers.

This is so funny... I get this video as soon as I'm waiting for a driver at this exact station to get a cab ride 😂

Aphex Twin dwelling underground in an electricity substation in the Elephant and Castle is sufficient for me - I hadn’t heard that one before, thank you again sir.

That first Elephant & Castle video was how I discovered your channel, Jago! I can just hear some of Aphex Twin's more sparse, whimsical tracks as soundtrack material for future episodes...maybe he's already a subscriber?

Dumbarton in Scotland also had an Elephant and Castle pub, one of the oldest buildings in the High Street, which unfortunately fell into disrepair and was knocked down as part of the access to a new housing developement. Part of the rock at Dumbuck quarry in the town resembles an elephants head and there is a castle whose rock is said to resemble one too, but I'm not so sure!

"You can probably tell from the architecture...", yes, that life draining, suicide inspiring 1960/70s architecture.

From the early 19th century (?) watercolour you show, one’s heart breaks to see how attractive the area once looked, with an Elephant and Castle pub. Trainee urban architects should be forced to look at this watercolour alongside an image of how the area looks today!

The Eleanor Crosses are at the points where her coffin rested on its way from where she died (Harby in Nottinghamshire) and Westminster Abbey, where shecwas buried). There were 12 of them.

There are two other Infanta’s of Castile known to English history, Constance and Isabella who respectivly married John of Gaunt and Edmund of York, sons of Edward lll.

As a military aside,the name,"Infanta",was the origin of what is now,the combat INFANTRY,as they were the first designated foot soldiers,armed with pikes,and flintlocks! So another layer of history can be added,Jago,as there are always multiple paths,in any given historical review! Thank you 😇 😊! P.S.,Jago,you really should open a ballet studio,as you definitely keep people on their toes!! Thanks again!! 😊

Thanks Jago for an extremely interesting (Well at least to me) and informative video. Many moons ago we had a cleaner in one of the Telephone exchanges I worked in who always used rhyming slang. Whenever he spoke of the Elephant and Castle he always called it the "Envelope and Parcel" which I found mildly amusing and possibly a better name for the place!

I remember you did a vid about this a couple of years ago. I am sure it was very good - but this one is truly magnificent. I like the society of cutlers idea - shame you didn't find a link. Or it was just a pub on a coach route.

I remember my Dad, who was born in that area now covered in 60's high rise blocks, telling me it was named after a pub/Inn was built on that spot. using the timber from a broken up ship named "Le' Enfant Castille". And that the rest was just typical south London mispronunciation.

I went on a tour of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers. The significance of ivory is that it used to be hugely expensive: if you wanted to show off how rich you were, you'd have a sword with an ivory handle.

Although Charing Cross is often suggested as being named after Edward I's "cher reine" (dear queen), in whose honour the Eleanor Crosses were erected, the neighbourhood was already known as Cierring (river bend) in Saxon times.

It’s is a curious name! Over the last week, I have been on the Isle of Thanet and I went down the WWII tunnels in Ramsgate (well worth a look - lots of railway history too!) - one of the entrances comes up next to a pub called the Elephant and castle! - I think this makes the blacksmith idea plausible as Ramsgate, with its royal harbour, would have needed a lot of blacksmiths!

Jago, please do a video on what Waterloo was called before the battle of Waterloo. Also, a video on why White City is called White City

JAGO: Living in the U.S., I have wondered about this place name, and (reliably so), you have given me FAR MORE information than I could have ever expected from any other source!!👍

I always just assumed it was a pub, since historically pubs would often be named after some animal or object that could be put on a sign, identifiable even to the nonliterate.

I used to work at the Dept of Health there back in the day, still spotted the building, although most of the others have changed in the probably more than 15 years since I have been there. Distinctly remember you could get high just walking through the old shopping centre there! 😅

Castille's name originally meant "land of castles". It comes from the Middle Ages, when what is now Spain was a battlefield between Christians and Muslims. The north half of the inner plain was Christian at that time, and it was full of small castles, built by the war lords to protect their lands from Muslim attacks. So maybe there is, after all, a (very thin) connection with Elanor of Castille.

Always love the puns but can't believe you missed the opportunity for the one in the room

In a garden in the Cheshire hamlet of Peckforton, there stands a large (I would guess about 12 feet tall) carving of an Elephant with a castle on its back. It dates from 1859, and was hewn from two blocks of Cheshire's famous red sandstone. It's a fascinating sight, peering above the hedgerows. Its origins are also unclear, but could be a nod towards the Coat of Arms of the Corbett family who once owned Peckforton. The garden is situated close to the imposing mid-19th century "Peckforton Castle", now a luxury hotel and wedding venue. If you google "Elephant and castle Peckforton", you will find lots of images of it.

Am I the only one imagining Jago staying up late at night pouring over a wall of photos and drawings with bits of string linking them together like Sherlock Holmes? LOL.

As someone who has thoroughly intrigued by the name since I first saw it, I want to know more.

it is my belief that due to the illiteracy of the people in that area, the French children's home between the the corner of the start of the Old Kent road and the railway bridge, which did not exist back then, was called, Le Enfant terrible, which the people pronounced as, The Elephant and Castle. The same applies to Bedlam, a half mile away, a well known madhouse and used in everyday speech to describe chaos, it's true name being Bethlehem Church.

Don't forget - most coaching inns had stables and smithies of their own, and that it may well have been the coaching inn's own smithy that was related to the previous blacksmith. It's quite common for areas to be named after former pubs, and a lot of the planned estates up until the 70's were built with public houses being included as part of the design, at least until they were later "gentified" - now a lot of pubs have been repurposed into other uses, or torn down and built over as time has gone on. The history of coaching inns is quite spotty, but basically, as people moved between places, the pubs and inns were expanded upon. As commercial traffic grew, so did chartered coaching lines, who might sponsor the building of their own coaching inn in places between stops, although this wasn't so necessary in the UK, since we are a relatively small country with dense population centres. For freight, canals were favoured, but for passengers, it was coach - which were pretty much the first transport routes. Some of the terrain between such routes were quite dodgy, which in turn lead to boards being used to create wagon-ways, as a precursor to railways - the UK never really had an efficient road-building system in place like the Romans, and most of our routes were always former roman roads spottily kept up. With the advent of canals, waterways were dug to enable freight, but most of these would be linking existing waterways, and basically aimed at getting goods to the nearest dock for sale. When the railways started, that's when the first proper "new" routes within the UK were created, linking points of interest. The limitations of steam power and steel rails often meant existing routes were unfeasible for rail usage, but the desire to get both cargo and passengers to various destinations soon meant that the network grew as a whole, even as various rail companies competed with each other to create their own lines. Unlike railways, road transport competed using existing roads - although some people would try to control road routes through the use of tolls. Mostly though, control of the roads went to who controlled the coaching inns, and thus determine what coaches can stop where. However, it was very easy for a company to open a competing coaching inn, so there wasn't anywhere near as much profit to be made. Canals and waterways never really took off for passenger traffic, since creating canals was an expensive undertaking, and again, control was mostly enforced by who controlled what toll gates and lock houses, especially along natural waterways where there was often very little consensus over who owned what, and in most cases, would default to the landed lord of the region in the name of the king. As such, it's entirely possible that there may have been an existing smithy in the region which was expanded into a pub and coaching inn over time, taking the name Elephant and Castle after the heraldry of the Cuttler's Guild (or associated smithing organisation) that the smithy was part of, and any previous name may just simply be lost to the depths of time, becoming folklore for older generations as time went on. Of course, it's entirely possible that pubs just make up names to give them a sense of prestige, that may have little or no relevance to the area's history. Heraldric symbology is often used quite commonly, and I have even known new pubs to spring up with pretentious names, some of which remain today and others which have come and gone. Sometimes they might have names like "The King's Head," when they have nothing to do with any king or royalty, simply because it sounds prestigious. Others might be named after obscure local references to try and "fit in" and seem like they've "always been there." This is quite often the case of some of the larger pub chains who build pubs simply because they want one in the area of the competition, or have a relatively good deal alongside some kind of new hotel development - and quite often, if they have been there long enough, they do become landmarks in their own right, regardless of how dodgy or irrelevant their names may actually be at the time of their creation!

I always thought it had something to do with Coventry... which also has that lovely post war milieu that makes Prozac a number one best seller. (edit: Coventry's coat of arms is an Elephant and a Castle. The love of ugly cement architecture is just coincidental).

Elephant and Castle is quite a unique but strange place in South London given the name of it and Geoff Marshall has also been there before and I have been there as well. Plus there are plans to extend the Bakerloo Line from Elephant and Castle to Hayes and Bromley via Lewisham with 2 new stations to be built on Old Kent Road.

Jago has solved both the problem of the elephant in the room and the elephant in the castle, but not the problem of Elephant & Castle. Well two out three is not that bad!

People of a certain age will remember 'Up The Elephant and Round The Castle' with one Jim Davidson?

The name should be modernised to Posh Boy & Apartment to reflect the gentrification of the area and the fact you need money from parents to buy property around there.

Very cool that mention of Aphex Twin! That’s why I like this channel, because you have every cultural detail from the Romans till today!

I think that, before the 1960's redevelopment the are was also greatly known for the massive Trocadero cinema demolished for the DHSS offices (now flats by the Elephant pub shown. Sadly the Odeon built to replace it has now also been demolished. Even more that the Elephant Thetare (Later the ABC and Coronet cinema,) went with the current work on the shopping centre site.

I enjoy all of your videos. You manage to take something obscure and present it in a most riveting manner. Cheerio from New England.

Pubs named "The (animal) and (thing)" are common enough that a person with less atrophied scripting skills than mine could knock together a little generating script to make up amusing ones. Some friends and I used to do that kind of thing for fun back in college, sort of an electronic version of the old "Mad Libs" game. :)

Excellent video! Now, if you could only explain "Up the Elephant and Round the Castle"... or really, how Jim Davidson had any career at all.

This has probably got nothing to do with the name of the area, but I once heard a story that when George I came over from Germany to be king here he brought two, er, buxom German mistresses with him, whom the London wags named the Elephant and Castle.

The present Elephant & Castle pub is pretty nice; the one that preceded it on the site was a dump! The now gone Charlie Chaplin pub over the road wasn't very nice either. The Rockingham Arms is a 'spoons and has all the ambiance of a 1960s factory cafeteria, cheap beer notwithstanding.

Thanks for mentioning that you did an elephant&castle name explaining video a few years back, as I was suffering immediately from a Deja Vu' feeling for the first 30 seconds..

3:54 The arms of Castile and Leon is an example of what’s known as _canting arms,_ sort of visual puns in heralrdy. Another example is that of the Bowes-Lyon family, which features bows (the weapons) and lions.

Fascinating, I was actually walking through with my friend and we were asking ourselves how it got the name. Thanks, you've earned a subscriber!

Hi Jago. You had me worried there for a moment - I thought you weren't going to show the iconic Elephant & Castle, now moved to the roundabout(?). I can't believe you didn't mention that Michael Caine (Maurice Micklewhite) grew up in the area - "not many people know that" (well, quite a few do!).

Fascinating, Jago. Now if you could please turn your attention to that little-known area of London known as Rhinoceros and Sentry Box.

My local pub in the west Midlands is called the Elephant and Castle. These were items featured on the coat of arms of the family who owned the land on which the pub stands.

I've often wondered about this. Swiss Cottage is another curiosity.

There's an Elephant & Castle, a (British inspired) pub in Toronto. It's actually in an Eduardian era building (1908) - originally part of Upper Canada College and originally known as the Canadian General Electric Company Building, built by architect Frank Darling and John A. Pearson

When Elanor of Castile came to England as wife of Edward Longshanks [later King Edward 1st] in 1255 she landed at Dover and then proceeded up the Dover road [later known as the A2] where she was met by a large welcoming party just south of London. In those days the court and aristocracy spoke French. the clergy Latin and Elanor, her ladies and the Spanish ambassador Spanish. One has to imagine the English people present then asking each other what that girl's name was and receiving the reply that it sounded like Elephant and Castle so this is the name still given to this junction on the Dover road

There's a pub in Camden called Elephants Head. Well worth a visit.

A very entertaining video, greatly appreciated by this son of the other Elephant & Castle, ie Coventry.

One story I heard was the pub was owned by a man from Dumbarton which on its coat of arms has an elephant and a castle

As ever, you managed to pachyderm lot of information into a very short video!

There is something oddly satisfying in the fact that the monument to Michael Faraday houses a substation for the Underground. Perhaps the substation and the fact it’s for the Underground is as much as a monument to his legacy as the exterior that surrounds it.

Given the opportunity, I would name a place "Camel & Igloo" just to confuse everyone.

Very interesting! I was born in Peacock St, not to far from the Elephant & Castle, there use to be a zoo before the Pullens Est was built, there was a giraffe pub at the bottom of Newington Crescent, now sadly gone.

It is arguable who did the most damage, the Luftwaffe or '60s planners. Not that sure about the current ones either.

There is a chivalric order in Denmark called the Order of the Elephant, which badge is an elephant (what a surprise) carrying a castle.

Either that or someone was really bad at drawing snails! 😊

The Elephant and Castle has frequently been the butt of jokes which use Cockney Rhyming Slang, and is usually abbreviated to "Elephant". The Khyber Pass also shares this dubious honour. Thanks for uploading.

In "Mr Jolly Lives Next Door" by the esteemed Comic Strip Presents (C4) it was rhyming slang. "Elephant and Castle, stick it up your..." Ahem. 🤐

The old video weren't that bad mate , but you've excelled yourself with this one , more ephelumps than a Disney film from the 60s .🤗.

I’ve often wondered if there was a link to Dumbarton, Scotland. The crest of the county of Dumbarton is an almost identical elephant with a castle on its back. Because Dumbarton Castle, once the capital of the ancient kingdom of Strathclyde, sits on Dumbarton Rock, a volcanic plug that’s said to look like a sleeping elephant from a certain angle. There was also a very old pub called the Elephant & Castle that was knocked down in the last few years.

To further prove the “lots of pubs are called that” point, we have a pub in Bathurst, Australia, called the “Elephant And Castle”. It’s quite a good pub actually, though not my go-to. I did notice that the name above the door is printed on a brown banner, the same brown used for the Bakerloo Line, indicating a solid link with its London namesake! Or it could just be because it looked nice… yeah it’s probably that.

Thanks Jago. Could there be a link through chess for the Elephant and Castle? Chess pieces made of ivory of which a castle or rook could offer a link? Just a thought.

Working in the area, and most recently sering the old shopping centre bulldozed, it's interesting to learn some history of Elephant and Castle 🐘 🏰

I remember the pub being pulled down , and E and C being rescued. When the Faraday monument was put on the roundabout people thought it was an eyesore!

Your previous video on Elephant & Castle was very good as well!

Always great content. Thanks!

I thought it was named after a pub. :) ... Actually, there's probably a reason for that: Jago: *Finds a good reason for a pub to be a landmark.* Half the adults around when I was a kid: *Exclusively used pubs for landmarks.* It was a different world!

Freud: Sometime's an elephant's just an elephant.

The City of Coventry has had an elephant and castle on its coat-of-arms since the 13th century. This is one explanation for the use of it :- "The elephant's origins are curious and in Coventry it is used purely as a symbol of strength. It was believed that the elephant was the strongest beast in the world and it was capable of carrying a castle on its back. Therefore the elephant and castle became a double symbol of strength." Could that also be the origins of this symbol for this part of London?

That was pretty cool. Could you do the camel on the Plzeň coat of arms next please? I've heard that's a good story.

Known for a roundabout that changes its route and priorities every few years.

Thank you that, it has intrigued me from a very early age as my Mothers parents lived a stones throw from Lambeth North station so we were frequent users of the Bakerloo line, sometime we walked from Waterloo, but mostly got off at Lambeth North, but I always wanted to go an see the Elephant and Castle, I think I expected something like a circus or zoo, the only places I'd seen an Elephant! I remember the shopping centre there, when many years later taking my Granny, Mums Mum in her wheel chair one year before Christmas. It was lively and buzzing, but not quite a 'South London' version of Brent Cross? Keep up the good work Jago!

Aphex twin reference in railway video 👀 well played Jags.

I do like these cutting edge vids.

I could believe that Aphex Twin recorded music (or samples to use later) in an electricity substation.

This confirms my own researches. As a City Guide nobody has yet asked me about the connection between the E&C (the place) and the Cutlers' coat of arms. Hopefully one day somebody will.

And just around the corner there used to be a pub called 'The Frog and Nightgown' with its own special history.

You did do an Elephant and Castle video a few years ago, and it was excellent!

there used to be an odd, extremely eclectic and very well hidden record shop a short walk from Elephant & Castle tube station (about halfway up Brook Drive) they were the official UK distributor for several music publishers on the continent and the US, and when I lived down south, I visited in person a few times, each time spending a good hour poring over the sheer variety of releases they had, and coming away a few odds and sods that really piqued my interest the place was like an Aladdin's cave of obscure and outlandish music, but sadly it went to the wall some time in the mid-2000s; these days, places like that have been made largely obsolete by the internet, which at the time was much slower and far less extensive than it is today

Errm. The elephant and castle coaching inn was named after the guinea coin. It indicated that it could change this high denomination coin into smaller coinage. This was a common practice of coaching inns. Angel has the same origin re the angel coin. Pubs named the Crown sometimes also. The elephant and castle was the logo of the company which mined the gold from which the coin was supposedly made. Can't remember their name , but the castle represents the harbour fortress of Freetown in Sierra Leone.

The sword master Fiore dei Liberi mentions and shows an Elephant & Castle in his treatise on fighting in the early 15th century. It symbolises the strong foundation provided by your legs when fighting.

I’ll get shot for this but, in my ‘youff’ we always called it the ‘Elephants A-hole’. A windswept wilderness with uninspiring “architecture”, a desolate, godforsaken place.

You can catch a train from elephnat and castle to bat and ball- in Sevenoaks- two stations named after pubs on the same line. i used to live near E&C. Trust me, the road intersection was just named after the pub. 'Turn right at the Elephant and castle mate' e.g. The pub was built about the time we colonised India nd Howdahs would have been first seen, in pictures probably, hence the pubs (plural) names- you can't call every pub the 'Red Lion'!

Thank you, Jago, for enlightening me on this strange name.

Used tp ride round that roundabput on my Kawasaki in the 80s, always asssumed the stainless steel clump was some kind of art, now, 38 years after leaving the hell hole of London, I learned its a sub station. Used to go to the London college of printing there too, but imagine thats long gone, as is the trade I learnt there.

Bang goes my theory that it was named for Elephant, the paper size, and Castell the well known crayons, but I hadn't previously put pen to paper.

Ideally all pubs with "elephant" in their name should be open air. After all, one doesn't want an "Elephant in the room" ! 😁

Well, really, when it comes to a name, and names are important, sometimes the origin of the name carries a lot of weight. Not an intended pun there relating to the elephant. However, a name that exists from the past that may seem strange to us, was welcomed by our past forebears, and we should embrace their choice. Even enjoy the historical novelty aspect from back then. Elephant and Castle sounds a lot better to me than a Taxi and Motel for a name of a local area.

"You're the elephant to my castle?" Aww, I thought we were going to be the substation to your Aphex Twin!

The Guinness Trust terraced houses down the road are lovely.

Fascinating. thank you!

Interestingly there are two elephants (with castles) on the roof of Starbucks at Vauxhall - building looks as though it was once a pub? May have been a Fremlins pub - they used an Elephant logo on their bottles.

It’s a pub, like Angel, Bull and Bush, Hampstead, etc.

I am sure there was an explanation pit forward on an episode of Only Fools and Horse's about Hannibal turning up on am elephant and storming a castle LOL

I was once told that the owner of the pub came from the town of Dumbarton near Glasgow, Dumbarton's coat of arms has an elephant and a castle on it.

I have only been to London once and before that I had never heard of Elephant and Castle. It seemed obvious to me that it was a pub. The name sounds like a pub. What puzzled me, was that a pub was also a railway station and a bus destination.