Pub history

The Sir Alexander Fleming

Near Merchant Square, St Mary’s Hospital (now part of Imperial College) is where Sir Alexander Fleming, the eminent physician, ‘discovered’ penicillin. 5 Merchant Square rises high above Paddington Basin, built as the Grand Junction Canal’s terminus. With much flag-waving, bell-ringing and canon-firing, the waterway opened to traffic in 1801, bringing goods in bulk from the industrial Midlands to what was, then, the edge of the capital, from where they were also exported worldwide.