Royal Oak, Frindsbury unclear, but one reported theory is that it was named after the 17th-century warship HMS "Royal Oak", which was sunk at the nearby Raid on the Medway in 1664. Local people say that one of the beams in the pub comes from the ship, the remains of which may have been broken up at a nearby shipyard after the battle. Another theory is that it was named after the Royal Oak that Charles II of England hid in following the Battle of Worcester. In the late 18th or early 19th century it was given a Flemish Bond brick face and
HMS Royal Oak (1664) Dutch during their Raid on the Medway in 1667. HMS Royal Oak (1664) HMS "Royal Oak" was a 100-gun first rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched in 1664 at Portsmouth Dockyard. "Royal Oak" was built by John Tippets, Master-Shipwright at Portsmouth 1660-8, who later became Navy Commissioner and subsequently Surveyor of the Navy (Knighted 1672). Historian Brian Lavery quotes an entry in the "Calendar of State Papers, Domestic" series (the records of the English, and later, the British, governmental proceedings, dating back to the reign of Henry VIII; also known as the "British State Papers", and