Place Name
It is said to take its name from a 16thCentury tavern called The Czar of Muscovy’s Head which took its name from the Russian merchants or English traders who formed the Muscovy Company who frequented the area. It was said that the English merchants were encouraged in their dealings by Elizabeth I and were given a charter by Mary I in 1555 to a trade monopoly with Russia. But there is another suggestion that it far grander. Before the Court of St James was moved to Westminster, ambassadors were received at the Tower of London, and consequently many of their embassies and residences were based nearby. When Peter the Great came to London to study shipbuilding in 1698 he stayed nearby and became such a regular at this local that it was named in his honour. The pub was destroyed in the Second World War.
