This pub is also one of London’s Real Heritage Pubs and the description is as follows: “A large and much-frequented establishment built as a pub-cum-hotel around 1900 to designs by busy pub architects Eedle & Meyers. The symmetrical exterior is worthy of a good look for such details as the decorative plasterwork, cast-iron lamp standards and light brackets. The character has changed greatly inside but on the left-hand side a couple of screens remain from the days when there would have been a multiplicity of rooms. In this area there were bars described as being for ‘the lower class of customer’ (no such problem today in posh Dulwich). What is now the main bar area was originally known as the saloon and to the right of this, and originally separate from it, was the panelled coffee room. The restaurant used to be a billiard room and at the back left was a skittle alley. There are some good details of around 1900 remaining in terms of etched glass with the names of some of the former rooms, a good bar-back with plenty of decoration and, over the partition between main bar and former coffee room, some resited snob screens. But don’t miss the lavish tall friezes and the impressive ceiling decoration. Also pretty mosaic flooring on the left-hand side from a former corridor. The counters, by contrast, are quite plain. History in the area: Dulwich Village was once a hamlet and two of its buildings were public houses, the Crown and the Greyhound which were combined into the present pub. In the early 17th century an actor, Edward Alleyn founded Alleyn’s College for poor boys. Its full name was ‘Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift at Dulwich’ and in 1811-14, after the college had been enriched by a bequest of pictures, Sir John Soane designed the present gallery. Charles Barry Jr designed more buildings for the College which were opened on 21 June 1870 and the school took its present name, Dulwich College.”

It is also a grade II listed building and the listing description is as follows: “Public house. c1900. Polished granite pilaster and stucco cement to ground floor. Red brick in Flemish bond to 1st floor, alternating with stone bands to cross gables; pargetting and mock box-framing to gables. Hipped roof of tile to centre section; gable facing to cross gables. STYLE: Old English. PLAN: planned to recall a double-ended hall house. 2 and a half storeys over basement. Five-window range to centre and one canted bay window to each end bay. EXTERIOR: ground floor articulated by pilasters with attached lamp brackets. Entrances in 1st-, 3rd- and 6th-window ranges, the latter set under a prostyle porch of Composite order with balustrades above. At 1st floor the elevation divides into hall house form; segmental-arched windows to centre range of alternating width tied by springing band. Soffit to eaves of centre section ornamented with floral frieze. Pargetting to coved cornice under box-framed gable, each of which pierced by 2-light window. Dormer to centre of roof, the centre window of which topped by box-framed gable. Stacks to right return, and to right of left-hand cross wing; gable-facing dormer to left return. INTERIOR: ground floor divided into 4 roughly identical rooms, with panelling of original design and Jacobean strapwork to walls and frieze; beams divide ceiling into smaller panels. Etched glass to entrance and internal partitions. Bar with curved ends, continuous through ground floor.”

The Crown & Greyhound featured on the Daytime Crawl of Herne Hill, Dulwich and Sydenham in February 2004, the The Beautiful South: Daytime Crawl of Outer South East London in October 2011, and the Lunar Odyssey: From the Asylum to the Half Moon: Daytime Crawl of Peckham, Nunhead, Dulwich and Herne Hill in October 2017.