THREE CROWNS 45 HIGH ST (demolished).
Legend has it that original name for this inn was the PLOUGH AND FURROW, and that it dates back to the 1600s. The name was changed when three foreign princes, stranded off Cowes, sought shelter here. There is no evidence to support this; however it is a nice story. The most likely explanation for this pub name relates to the Magi.
On slightly safer ground is the use of a boat’s keel in its structure and railway sleepers from the Cowes Newport Railway as beams.
The County Press on 3rd August 1974 recorded the funeral of Mrs Ruth “Dot” Bartley. Born in Birmingham she came to the Island in 1944 and had been licensee of the Three Crowns for 17 years. Over 200 people attended the funeral; among them were Robin Knox-Johnston and many visiting yachtsmen. This was the local for many Cowes Week participants. Dot even, as a joke, started her own “yacht club” with its own burgee and ties, worn by “members all over the world”.
Anne Bartley who married the incumbent James Bartley in 1976 was for many years a well-known and very popular landlady. Perhaps best remembered as “Shanghai Lil”, so called because, like the original, she was known to help sailors (and others) down on their luck. She was so proud of this sobriquet that she took a the name plaque “Shanghai Lil” from the bar to place on the front door of her new home just up Sun Hill.