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The Trafalgar Way Brentford & Chiswick On Monday 21st October 1805 the Royal Navy decisively defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar on the south west coast of Spain. This victory permanently removed the threat of invasion of England by the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte The first official dispatches with the momentous news of the victory, and the death in action of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson, were carried to England on board H. M. Schooner PICKLE by her captain, Lieutenant John Richards Lapenotiere. Lapenotiere landed at Falmouth on Monday 4th November 1805 and set out "express by post-chaise" for London. He took some 37 hours on the 271 mile journey, changing horses 21 times. The last of these was at Hounslow late at night on Tuesday 5th. His orders were to lose no time in reaching the Admiralty so, as the horses were still fresh, he pressed on through fog in Brentford and Chiswick toward Whitehall. Over the following four weeks other important messages arrived from the fleet with further details of the victory and anxiously awaited information on casualties. All the dispatches were landed at Falmouth and their couriers followed the same route through Brentford and Chiswick where horses and hospitality were available from the inns to all travellers on what is now the Trafalgar Way.
Plaque Wording:
The George and Devonshire, originally called The George, is a Grade II listed building, and has traded as a public house since the 1650's. It is the last pub still trading in what was Chiswick Village, the others having been demolished or closed down. The George and Devonshire has had generations of publicans over the years including John Howell Burden, the assistant purser of the Lusitania, aged 25, who was drowned when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 7th May 1915. Both are buried in Chiswick Graveyard. In the 18th century, smugglers used to row up the Thames with their contraband goods of rum and spirits and at a given signal pull over towards the huddle of fisher cottages between the river and the medieval church of St Nicholas. Somewhere among those tiny houses was the opening of a tunnel which led under the church to the George and Devonshire. There the boats would be unloaded and the goods carried up a secret passage, which led into the cellar. Evidence of this passageway can be seen today in the cellar of the George and Devonshire with two steps leading up to a bricked up doorway, facing towards the river!