The White Lyon was a regular music venue in the mid to late ’80s. The jazz trio called Dumb Waiter along with Sammy Rat’s Big Big Blues Band, who debuted there around ’86, Piccadilly Mudmen, and The Flying Tigers played regularly.
There has been a pub on the site since the late 18th century, while the most recent building was built post-1939. The artist Sidney Sime would sit in the bar at what was then The New Inn making cartoon drawings of other characters who drank there. That was the former pub building, that survived for a few years after the new pub was built and was the headquarters of the local Home Guard during the Second World War, now replaced but the 20th century roadhouse we knew as The White Lyon.
On Christmas Eve ’87, The Special Sammy Rat Band, without the ‘Big Big Blues’, provided a night of Rock ‘n Roll, returning on 1 September ’88 as the full-blown Sammy Rats Big Big Blues Band. Hot Club appeared on 16 September ’88 and The Rockit Men were also rocking it at The White Lyon in ’89. The Ant Hill Mob’s debut gig was at the venue on 31 January ’91, returning on 11 April ’91. The Tamla Tigers, with their Soul, Motown and Stax numbers and Godfrey Matthews on keyboards, always packed the place out.
In a prominent location of the A320 the pub closed in early 2018, reopening in late October 2018, as a dim sum restaurant, with bar, renamed White Lyon & Dragon. Closing during Covid, it did not reopen and by 2021 the building was being used as officers. As of September 2024 a planning application had been discussed for converting The White Lyon from a public house to an office and five apartments.
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