A Victorian pub in central London has taken down a sign bearing a portrait of Prince Andrew after the Duke's continued fall from grace made the embarrassment of association too much to bear.

The landlords of the in Fitzrovia defended a sign emblazoned on the outside of the boozer of the prince in his Royal Navy uniform amid calls to take it down after his car crash BBC interview in 2019.

Despite telling The Sun: "There's absolutely no reason that they should come down and I don't care if people don't like them," proprietors Alan Monks and Debi Sickelmore have had a change of heart after yet more allegations were levelled against the king's brother of links to the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Emails handed to a court in London this week revealed that Prince Andrew reportedly and we'll play some more" two months after the pair supposedly cut ties in December 2010.

It also emerged that one of the Duke's close aides had allegedly told that he was permitted access to the Royal family that "very, very few people have the privilege [of]".

The decision to take down the likeness of Prince Andrew, which was commissioned by the pub landlords in 2014 and painted by American artist Igor Babailov, comes as the couple prepare to retire after 20 years of running the Duke of York.

New owners, the Hertford-based brewery McMullen and Sons evidently felt less inclined to give the prince the benefit of doubt and, while not planning to change the historic boozer's name, its controversial iconography has been taken down.

While a less-easily-removed image of the Duke remains on the corner of the building, the hanging sign was unceremoniously stuffed into the back of a van on Friday, according to The Sun, before being shipped home with Debi and Allen, who are reportedly planning to hang it in their garden.

It will be a blow to the prince, who Allen said had been "well chuffed that his picture was hanging outside a London pub" after it was erected over a decade ago.

He has gradually retreated from the public eye since the Epstein scandal dramatically unfolded, and was exacerbated by a TV interview with Emily Maitlis in 2019.

During the notorious conversation, the prince insisted that a photograph appearing to show Andrew, 64, with then-17-year-old Virginia Giuffre in 2001 was doctored and disputed her claims that she had been sex trafficked by Epstein on the grounds that he was medically unable to sweat.

He paid Ms Giuffre a total of £13 million to settle a civil claim for sexual assault in 2022, with no admission of any wrongdoing on the prince's part.

After stepping down as a working royal in 2019 the duke made headlines again in late 2024 after it was revealed that he had enjoyed a close friendship with suspected Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.

Tengbo has denied claims that he was a spy for China and Prince Andrew claimed he had ceased all contact between the pair immediately after suspicions were raised.