Prince of hugs! William embraces a young fan during surprise visit to a Peckham pub

Prince William offered a warm embrace to a young fan who approached the royal during a visit to a London pub this afternoon.

The Prince of Wales was making a surprise visit to The Prince of Peckham when the schoolgirl moved in for a hug, and the father-of-three duly obliged, posing for a photograph with the youngster.

William was in the capital’s south east to show his appreciation for British pubs and understand more about the role they play in our culture and community.

Dressed in a navy blue linen suit with a light blue shirt, the royal even tried his hand behind the bar, looking a little nervous as he pulled a pint.

The 43-year-old dropped by to learn more about The Prince of Peckham’s ‘Chatty Patty’ initiative, which was set up by landlord Clement Ogbonnaya in 2017 to help combat loneliness.

Dressed in a navy blue linen suit with a light blue shirt, the royal even tried his hand behind the bar, looking a little nervous as he pulled a pint.

The 43-year-old dropped by to learn more about The Prince of Peckham’s ‘Chatty Patty’ initiative, which was set up by landlord Clement Ogbonnaya in 2017 to help combat loneliness.

+8
View gallery

A youngster saw an opportunity for a hug with the heir to the throne during the Prince of Wales’ visit to The Prince of Peckham on Wednesday afternoon

+8
View gallery

The Prince embraced the schoolgirl, who made a beeline for the 43-year-old royal as he arrived at the south-east London pub to learn more about social events designed to combat loneliness in the SE15 community

The weekly sessions see attendees enjoying free cups of tea and a chat, with similar social events also taking place in the historic SE15 boozer, including poetry nights and yoga sessions.

Mr Ogbonnaya was honoured by the Palace in the New Year’s Honours List for his work on fighting isolation with the inclusive pub events.

The community-led venue was founded as an inclusive ‘pub for all’ and is now regarded as a hub for strengthening local connection.

After arriving at the community pub, the heir to the throne spent time posing for selfies with patrons, local residents and well-wishers before heading inside to get behind the bar.

William pulled a very passable pint at the regal-themed pub, as he spoke of the importance of locals in bringing people together.

He also threw his support behind campaigns to save Britain’s pubs, which are slowly dying out in many communities across the country, saying we need to ‘protect’ them.

William said: ‘I love pubs. I want to do as much as I can to support pubs because I love the community. We need to protect our pubs.’

The future king added that Britain’s public houses act as ‘the glue and fabric’ in a community, adding: ‘It’s the people – the team – around a pub that make it.’

It comes as chancellor Rachel Reeves was forced to announce a support package for struggling hostelries in late January.

+8
View gallery

The tactile Prince shared a warm handshake with Clement Ogbonnaya after pouring a pint of Red Stripe draught lager

+8
View gallery

The community-led pub has been praised for its social inclusion initiatives including yoga, poetry nights and ‘Chatty Patty’, a weekly tea and chat session (Prince William pictured outside The Prince of Peckham with local residents)

Speaking about Mr Ogbonnaya, the Prince said: ‘It’s a family business which is good, because that makes the pub.’

He told the group that he ‘grew up in pubs’ and has previously described them as ‘crucial’ for human contact.

During the visit, he pulled a pint of Red Stripe with Mr Ogbonnaya, describing his own efforts as ‘really good’ and receiving a round of applause.

He joked Mr Ogbonnaya was ‘just as bad as me’ and the pair laughed and bumped shoulders after their efforts.

Prince William also tried the jerk chicken with plantain, which he said ‘blew my mind’.

‘I’m hoping they’ll Deliveroo this jerk chicken to Windsor,’ he quipped.

Earlier in the day, William visited Pecan, a longstanding community charity based in Peckham dedicated to addressing poverty.

While there, he spoke about how the 24-hour news cycle and mobile phone use are partially to blame for driving rising depression and loneliness.

He said: ‘With everyone’s phones now you can get so much news, that actually it completely overwhelms you in terms of being able to process this and that.

‘And unfortunately most of the time we hear bad stuff, so you can reinforce someone into the bad place and depression.

‘You reinforce innocently [just] looking at your phone and the news so I can see that it’s overwhelming when you feel like it’s just negativity all the time.’

+8
View gallery

The Prince of Wales pictured alongside pub owner Clement Ogbonnaya, who was honoured by the Palace for transforming The Prince of Peckham into a community hub

During the visit, he met with staff members, volunteers and Pecan clients – many of whom have escaped homelessness and poverty through the community charity’s services.

After hearing from Stella, who told him how she was sleeping on the streets before the Pecan team found her in 2017, William said: ‘It’s amazing what you guys do, it puts people’s lives back on track again.’

The Prince added: ‘This feels like a very happy family. But that family point and that caring is so important at the moment – it’s the magic ingredient of a really good charity. It’s a hard dynamic to get that right, but when you do get it right it’s gold dust.’

He also discussed his and the Princess of Wales’s donation to the local Southwark Foodbank, operated by Pecan just off Peckham High Street, after it was robbed in September 2024.

The couple donated to help replenish stock after £3,000 of food and hygiene products were taken, as well as a laptop.

+8
View gallery

The Prince made the surprise south-east London drop-in as part of a visit to understand more how British pubs contribute to community

Speaking about the incident on Wednesday, William said: ‘I was reading all the stories about it and… I was trying to picture where you were and how that all happened because we were looking for a while to try and see how we could help and your article came across my phone and I was like “okay”.’

He also paid a visit to the warehouse of the foodbank and met two volunteers, one of whom helped him to pack one of the food parcels that gets distributed locally.

Steve Byrne, the chef and owner of White Men Can’t Jerk, who also cooked William’s jerk chicken at Prince of Peckham on Wednesday, personally donates 6,000 meals a year to the foodbank.

Speaking after the Prince left, Mr Ogbonnaya said he hoped the Chatty Patty initiative would be launched across all pubs in Britain eventually.

He said: ‘Public houses are, in my opinion, very underused spaces. They can be used more for communities, for community work and action groups.’

William’s pub visit comes on the same day that a West Country boozer he spent his late teenage years frequenting re-opened after more than five years.

+8
View gallery

Earlier in the day, the Prince met recipients of The Diana Award during a visit to the SXSW London Festival in Shoreditch, east London

The remote 18th century Tunnel House Inn, tucked away in rural farmland just 15 minutes from the King’s Highgrove estate, was a firm favourite with the young Prince of Wales and Duke of Sussex before their high-profile falling out.

The off-the-beaten track pub often saw the brothers sharing a pint while staying at their father’s Cotswolds retreat… but the popular inn was left in need of major restoration after its previous owners called time on running it due to a rental disagreement.

At one time, speculation suggested that the pub might have been the venue for Prince Harry losing his virginity in 2001 – but the Duke of Sussex clarified in his memoir Spare that the encounter had actually taken place at The Vine Tree Inn, in the Wiltshire village of Norton.

The centuries-old pub, popular with walkers and close to the small West Country village of Coates, first shut its doors – and boarded up the windows – during the pandemic in 2020.

Local publican Peter Austen, who also runs The Bell in nearby Sapperton, will re-open the historic pub after extensively renovating it.

The landlord told the BBC that the reaction to The Tunnel House re-opening has been hugely positive, saying: ‘We’ve had an outpouring of support from people on social media when they’ve heard it’s going to be reopening because their grandparents have known it, their parents have known it.’

+8
View gallery

Cotswold beauty: Just 15 minutes’ drive from Highgrove, The Tunnel Inn is tucked away in rural countryside and was a firm favourite of the Royal Family before closing in 2020

Posting on Instagram, he added: ‘After months of planning, restoring, rebuilding and carefully bringing this old pub back to life, seeing the name back on the building and the completed interior lettering makes everything feel very real.’

The property is thought to have three rooms available for overnight stays but will re-open just the bar initially.

The Tunnel House dates back to the late 18th century and was originally built as a property to house workers helping to erect the Sapperton Canal Tunnel.

Such were the tight working conditions, the employees would have to ‘leg’ their way through the tunnel – essentially lying on their backs and using their feet to ‘walk’ along the ceiling to propel themselves forward.

SOURCE: Prince of hugs! William embraces a young fan during surprise visit to a Peckham pub | Daily Mail Online