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

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

As the Prince of Wales paid a surprise visit to the Prince of Peckham, the schoolgirl swooped in for a hug and the father of three duly obliged for a photo with the youngster.

William was in the south-east of the capital To show his appreciation for British pubs and better understand the role they play in our culture and society.

Wearing a navy blue linen suit and light blue shirt, the royal even tried his hand at behind the bar, looking a little nervous as he pulled his beer.

Stop by to find out more about the 43-year-old Prince of Peckham’s storyChatty Patty, an initiative founded by host Clement Ogbonnaya in 2017 to help combat loneliness.

The prince embraced the schoolgirl, who made a beeline for the 43-year-old royal, who arrived at the south-east London bar to find out more about social events designed to combat loneliness in the SE15 community.

Attendees enjoy free tea and conversation at weekly sessions, while similar social events take place at the historic SE15 boozer, including poetry nights and yoga sessions.

Mr Ogbonnaya was honored by the Palace in its New Year Honors List for his work to combat isolation through inclusive pub events.

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

After arriving at the public bar, the heir to the throne took time to take selfies with customers, local residents and well-wishers before heading inside to get behind the bar.

William drank some pretty good beer in the gorgeous themed bar while talking about the importance of locals in bringing people together.

He also backed campaigns to save British pubs, which are slowly disappearing in many communities across the country, saying we need to ‘protect’ them.

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

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

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

The Tactile Prince shared a warm handshake with Clement Ogbonnaya after pouring a glass of Red Stripe draft beer.

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

Speaking about Mr Ogbonnaya, the Prince said: ‘It’s a family business and that’s good too, because it makes the pub beautiful.’

He told the group he ‘grew up in bars’ and has previously said bars are ‘very important’ for connecting with people.

During the visit, he pulled a glass of Red Ribbon with Mr Ogbonnaya, described his own efforts as ‘really good’ and received applause.

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

Prince William also tried the banana meat chicken and said it ‘blew my mind’.

‘I hope they deliver this stupid chicken to Windsor,’ he joked.

Earlier in the day, William visited Pecan, a charity based in Peckham dedicated to the fight against poverty.

While there, he described how the 24-hour news cycle and cell phone use were partly responsible for increasing depression and loneliness.

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

‘And unfortunately most of the time we hear bad things, so it can lead someone into a bad mood and depression.

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

The Prince of Wales is seen with bar owner Clement Ogbonnaya, who was honored by the Palace for transforming Peckham’s Prince’s House into a community hub

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

After hearing from Stella, who described how she was sleeping on the streets before the Pecan team found her in 2017, William said: ‘What you guys are doing is incredible, it’s putting people’s lives back together.’

The prince added: ‘This feels like a very happy family. But this is a family matter and this interest is very important right now; This is the magic ingredient of a truly good charity. It’s a challenging dynamic to get it right, but when you do it right you get gold dust.’

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

The couple donated to help replenish stocks after receiving £3,000 worth of food and hygiene products as well as a laptop.

The prince made a surprise visit to south-east London as part of his visit to better understand how British pubs contribute to society.

Speaking about the incident on Wednesday, William said: ‘I was reading all the stories about this and… I was trying to imagine where you were and how it all happened because we had been calling for a while to see how we could help and your article came up on my phone and I was like ‘okay’.’

He also visited the food bank’s warehouse and met two volunteers; One of them helped him pack one of the food parcels distributed locally.

Steve Byrne, 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 food bank.

Speaking after the prince’s departure, Mr Ogbonnaya said he hoped the Chatty Patty initiative would eventually be rolled out in every pub in Britain.

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

William’s bar visit came on the day the West Country boozer, where he frequented his teenage years, reopened after more than five years.

Earlier in the day, the Prince met with Diana Award recipients during his visit to the SXSW London Festival in Shoreditch, east London.

Located on rural farmland just 15 minutes from the King’s Highgrove estate, the remote 18th-century Tunnel House Inn was a favorite of the young Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex before their high-profile departure.

This unorthodox pub saw the brothers frequent pints while staying at their father’s Cotswolds retreat… but the popular inn needed a major restoration after its previous owners called time on the business due to a rent dispute.

There was once speculation that the bar might have been the venue where Prince Harry lost his virginity in 2001; but the Duke of Sussex revealed in his memoir Spare that the encounter actually took place at The Vine Tree Inn in the Wiltshire village of Norton.

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

Local publican Peter Austen, who also runs The Bell in nearby Sapperton, will reopen the historic pub after an extensive refurbishment.

The owner told the BBC the response to the reopening of the Tunnel House has been overwhelmingly positive, saying: ‘We’ve had a huge amount of support from people on social media because when they heard it was reopening their grandparents knew about it, their parents knew about it too.’

Cotswold beauty: Just 15 minutes’ drive from Highgrove, The Tunnel Inn is nestled in rural countryside and was a favorite of the royal family before it closed in 2020.

He added on Instagram: ‘After months of planning, restoration, rebuilding and carefully bringing this old pub back to life, seeing the name of the building and the completed interior lettering makes it all feel so real.’

The property is thought to have three rooms available for overnight stays, but initially only the bar will reopen.

The Tunnel House dates back to the late 18th century and was originally built to house workers who helped build the Sapperton Canal Tunnel.

Under such tight working conditions, workers would have to move through the tunnel ‘with their feet’; they would have to essentially lie on their backs and use their feet to ‘walk’ across the ceiling to propel themselves forward.