Although this pub is not a listed building it is one of London’s Real Heritage pubs (ie it is on CAMRA’s London Regional Inventory of Pub Interiors of Special Historic Interest) and the description is as follows: “A suburban, red-brick pub built in the 1930s by Hodgsons’ Kingston Brewery – named on a cast-iron plaque low down outside about rights of way (Hodgsons ceased brewing in 1949 but continued bottling until 1965). Over the entrance is a shield with the three salmon from the borough arms and a rebus with K and a tun. These features and the general architectural style reappear at the Hodgsons’ contemporary, but larger, Manor pub in Malden Manor [now sadly closed and soon to become a Coop supermarket]. As you enter you can’t miss the attractive and most unusual curved doors – left to the public bar and, right, to a large room which is now an amalgamation of two original ones. The outside door to the rear portion has now been blocked off. Perhaps the most notable feature is the octagonal, leaded skylight over the servery. There is also some original work in the fireplace, panelling, counters, parts of the stillion in the centre of the servery, and curved cornices to the ceilings. The area beyond the arch in the rear room was once a kitchen.

History in a name: Villiers Road is named after Lord Francis Villiers who fought for King Charles I in the Civil War. He died while fighting in an orchard near Villiers Road. The Hogsmill River just to the north is the place where the great Victorian artist John Everett Millais painted his famous picture, Ophelia.”

The Duke of Buckingham featured on the Daytime Crawl of Southern Outer London in June 2005, the Three Salmon, Several Ks, and a Tun: Daytime Crawl of Kingston, Malden Manor, and New Malden in October 2010, the A Turk, A Rifleman, A Druid, A Duke, A Swan and Some Doves: Daytime Crawl of Twickenham, Hampton Court and Kingston in June 2015, and the Hostelries Along the Hogsmill: Daytime Pub Tour of Kingston and New Malden in February 2020.