Home > Essex > Dagenham > Anglers Retreat Anglers Retreat
Date of photo: 1930	Picture source: National Brewery Heritage Trust
The Anglers Retreat was situated on New Road (A13).
This pub dated back to the early 19th century. It was rebuilt in the 1880s and again in 1926. It closed in 2001 and was demolished in 2002.
Colin Price
My Grandmother worked in the Anglers Retreat Pub on the A13, the Ford factory was directly behind and it was frequented by many Ford workers. It was on the A13 just near to the Anglers Retreat that Matt Monro (a former bus driver turned crooner) was involved in a car accident in which a man, James Galvin, lost his life.
Colette Ward (July 2021)
In the summer of 1979 my Mother and Stepfather Ella and Roy Sharkey took over the running of the Angler's Retreat in Dagenham, leaving in December 1981. I noticed that one of your other contributors mentioned that the singer Matt Monro was involved in a car accident during that time, sadly killing a man, and I can add some additional information to that. In general it was a terrible place to have a pub. You can see from your old picture how close it was to the road, which became the A13 and had cars and lorries driving along it at 60 to 70mph. Most of the information I have about the death of James Galvin is provided by my stepfather Roy who went out to see what had happened. For this reason I cannot claim that any of this is fact. However, when Roy went outside it was clear that James was in a bad way having been hit by a car containing Matt Monro and his son. James had left the pub late and fairly inebriated and intending to go to the social club over the road. Roy took Matt and his son into the pub and gave Matt a couple of drinks to help calm his nerves. He subsequently had to appear in court to attest to that. I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, but in Roy’s opinion Matt had already been drinking and when in court he could only remember that he had given Matt several drinks.
Chris Sharkey (December 2021)
A V2 rocket impacted a field on the opposite side of the road to the Anglers Retreat at 7:15 pm on 23 January 1945. ( The A13 now re-numbered A1306 ) . ( I believe this is reported as incident No. 593 on the London Rocket website - ). A number of people were killed and at least 4 properties demolished – mainly in the row of cottages ( Victoria Cottages ) that were alongside the Anglers. The front of the pub was quite badly damaged. One house in was badlly damaged and it also shattered a lot of windows in Oval Rd South. We were allowed, as children. to go over to the site a couple of days after where we collected bits of shrapnel. I was once told off for playing in a cornfield behind the Anglers – I was told off by my dad who was with the farmer in the pub, at the time. Later, in the 1950's Ford built a new assembly building ( the PTA ) on the farmland behind the pub – and one of the first cars that rolled off the line, behind the pub, was the Ford 105E Anglia. The Anglers Retreat was situated on the south side of New Road, approx 300 to 400 metres west of the Beam River. ( Some websites are incorrectly " guessing " its position as being at the junction with Kent Avenue, further west ).
Malc Duff (February 2026)
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