World Wide Words provides the following explanation:
Some of the references are now quite opaque, but we can take a fair shot at a few. In the second verse, the City Road was, still is, a well-known street in London, more than a mile long. The Eagle was a famous public house and music hall, which lay near the east end of the road on the corner of Shepherdess Walk; this had started its life as a tea-garden, but was turned into a music hall in 1825 (one of the very first); it ended its days as a Salvation Army centre and was pulled down in 1901. However, it was replaced by another pub, which still exists under the same name.
The City Road had a pawnbroker’s shop near its west end and to pop was a well-known phrase at the time for pawning something. So the second verse says that visiting the Eagle causes one’s money to vanish, necessitating a trip up the City Road to Uncle to raise some cash. But what was the weasel that was being pawned? Nobody is sure. Some suggest it was a domestic or tailor’s flat-iron, a small item easy to carry. My own guess is that it’s rhyming slang: weasel and stoat = coat. Either way, it seems to have been a punning reinterpretation of the catch line from the older dance.
This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Pop goes the weasel
Commemorated ati
Eagle Tavern - song
Up and down the City Road In and out the Eagle That's the way the money goe...
Other Subjects
Thomas Tiplady
Born Yorkshire. Raised as a Methodist. Became a minister in the East End, a chaplain in WW1. Became Superintendent of the Lambeth Mission in London in 1922, and was there 32 years. Wrote many hymns...
Sir William Walton
Composer, born William Turner Walton at 93 Werneth Hall Road, Oldham, Lancashire. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford, he befriended Sacheverell Sitwell and became a protegé of him and his siblings E...
Leslie Palmer
Director of the Notting Hill Carnival from 1973-1975. He played a key part in shaping the carnival into its modern form, and made a controversial decision to invite local Jamaican sound systems and...
Ringo Starr
Musician and songwriter. Born Liverpool. One of the four Beatles, the drummer in the group, though, when asked whether Ringo was the best drummer in the world, John Lennon replied: "He's not even t...
John Lennon
Musician and songwriter. Born Liverpool. One of the four Beatles. Shot dead in the steet in New York City by Mark Chapman. One of the few people commemorated with more than one English Heritage-m...