Whitechapel Road Road in 1884. Visitors paid to see him in the back room of a shop owned by showman Tom Norman. The shop was directly opposite the Royal London Hospital, and Merrick was frequently visited by doctors. Merrick later moved to the hospital permanently, where he spent the last years of his life. The Blind Beggar is at No. 337 and was the founding point of the Salvation Army following a meeting outside the pub by William Booth in 1865. On 9 March 1966, the venue became notorious after Ronnie Kray fatally shot George Cornell at the pub. The premises remains
The Hobbit (pub) The Hobbit (pub) The Hobbit is a pub in the Bevois Valley area of Southampton, England. Previously the Portswood Hotel, it was named after J. R. R. Tolkien's book "The Hobbit" in 1989. In 2012 the pub was involved in a legal dispute with Middle-earth Enterprises, a company owned by film producer Saul Zaentz, over its use of the name. The Hobbit was originally known as the Portswood Hotel, and appears on 19th-century Ordnance Survey mapping. It was renamed The Hobbit in 1989. Its name is inspired by the race of the same name featured in the works of J.