The high life in the old Black Country
THE Oak Tree public house on Waterfall Lane was originally called The Vine, probably during the tenure of its first licensee. The earliest recorded is the Rowley Regis-born John William Tibbetts who worked as a maltster. This may indicate that a brewery was situated on or certainly near the premises which was a common practice at this time.
What prompted the change of name for this public house has long since been lost in a very distant past. Although some records indicate John Tibbetts commenced his management of the Waterfall Lane hostelry in 1841, his father, also named John, died in 1840; his residence in the same year is recorded as Tipton, however, his death took place at Waterfall Lane. This may suggest that the Tibbetts family administration of the Oak Tree was earlier than at first believed.
Family
John William Tibbetts died in 1860 but the family interest in the licensing trade continued through his eldest daughter Eliza. Her personal profile is worthy of some mention for reasons I will now elucidate. In 1833 she married Jeremiah Laister, the wedding officiated by the Bible thumping firebrand George Barrs at his dilapidated Rowley Church, the building he ferociously campaigned to have replaced; he succeeded in his efforts but failed to see its opening in 1840 as his death preceded the event that very same year. Eliza’s marriage, therefore, must have been one of the last in that crumbling church that stood atop the hill that overlooked its people and parishioners. Jeremiah Laister, like his new wife’s father, was also a maltster and later a victualler, tending the pumps at the Crown Inn at the very bottom of Waterfall Lane at the beginning of the 1860s. He had established his Fox Oak Brewery in the 1840s and was therefore well placed to administer the afore-mentioned premises.
The Tibbetts’ management of the Oak Tree came to an end at some point in the early 1850s, the exact year not having been established. In the same decade William Hughes set himself behind the bar, however, I imagine his commitment was limited due to business concerns elsewhere; moreover, the licensed premises had already been passed to auction where it was sold in March of 1858. Interestingly, the auction notice names the premises as the Royal Oak, giving some firmer ground to the time at or near which its name changed. In the summer of the same year (and referencing on this occasion the building as the Oak Inn), a report relating to ‘Petitions of Insolvent
Debtors’ was released that shone some light on Mr Hughes’s extra curricula activity. This petition referenced William Hughes as a, “…Butty Miner, previously of the Oak Inn, Waterfall Lane… Licensed Victualler… being in partnership with Thomas Lister, and carrying on business under the style or firm of ‘Hughes and Lister,’ as Butty Miners, at the Waterfall Lane Colliery… part of the time being a Grocer, Provision and Flour Dealer… and being in partnership with William Pritchard and carrying on business under the style or firm of ‘Hughes and Pritchard,’ as Butty Miners at the Eagle Colliery, Rowley Regis...”
Licensee
Another early licensee was James Gaunt, sometimes referred to as Jem. His association with the Oak Tree is a little uncertain as any extant records lead us down something of a dead end with only a glimmer of light visible at the extremities. By the beginning of the 1860s he was resident at Waterfall Lane but without any clearly obvious connection to the licensing or brewing industry; in fact, in 1861 Jem/james is working as a Brick Burner, although from other similar projects I have undertaken it is not uncommon for some “more professional” individuals to have multiple occupations. Take into account a messy mix of verbal instructions and an enumerator’s interpretation of the facts, the final recorded details are not always as concise as they could have been.
Ambiguity
Before moving on to other aspects of this Waterfall Lane watering hole, I will make allusion to another early licensee whose connection cannot be divorced from these examinations – this is one Joseph Boilstone. His background, like others before him, is clouded in some fuzzy ambiguity. To qualify the latter sentence, there were two Joseph Boilstones involved in the licensing trade from the 1860s up to the 1880s and
maybe a little later. In order to fix some chronology to the story we must first look at someone I will refer to, helpfully so, as Joseph Boilstone Senior. As early as 1861 records indicate him working as a “boat loader and beer housekeeper,” his wife Rachael and later widow in the following decade making her living as a “licensed beer seller” on Blackheath High Street; her husband had died in 1869 leaving less than £100, but presumably such an amount in midvictorian England allowed for some comfort and financial security. Rachael’s part in this story appears to dwindle after 1876, the last year records place her in the same business.
Before Joseph Boilstone Senior’s death in 1869, a trade directory from 1862 throws up something of an annoying anomaly in our so far reasonably ordered direction of travel. The directory lists a Joseph Boilston of Bleak Heath – a “retailer of beer,” the surname’s mis-spelling an evident printing error and thus not anything of significance to distract our scrutiny, however, the same document notes one John Woodall of Waterfall Lane, his residence/place of work being the Royal Oak. It could just be of course that Boilstone Senior’s business was simply shop based and not conducted on licensed premises. Where the clarity is further dimmed to some degree is the directories from 1865 which reference a Joseph Boilstone in Blackheath but without providing any evidence of whether this is Boilstone Senior or Junior. Leaving such uncertainty aside, we can count on more substantiated documents when we talk of Joseph Junior. He is easily identified through Trade and County Directories from at least 1872-1880 and more importantly as the licensed victualler of The Oak at Waterfall Lane which further pinpoints the reversal of the name change at some point close to or after those latterly aforementioned years.
Unsocial
In 1876, the Oak Inn, as it was called in a report that year, found itself subject to unsocial behaviour perhaps considered more of a 21st century phenomenon than that found in the Black Country during Queen Victoria’s closing years. Sylvanus Harris, a local miner from Moor Lane, that rural looking,
twisting and meandering narrow road connecting the bottom of Powke Lane and Ross, had entered the Oak in a state of some inebriation demanding beer. The wife of the landlord, Rosannah Boilstone, promptly refused at which point the Moor Lane miner now in an agitated and violent state spew forth a string of “disgusting language.” What made this an all too unwholesome episode was that Sylvanus Harris had directed his profanities not just towards Mrs Boilstone but at her 5-year-old dead son John Joseph who was lying in the house. Very soon after this Harris absconded from the scene, the authorities yet to deal with him. By March 1877, Sylvanus Harris was standing in front of magistrates on a charge of being “drunk on licensed premises” to which he pleaded guilty. Despite his admittance of culpability, the circumstances at the Oak Inn had led the prosecution to press the charge. It was discovered that the defendant had seven previous convictions against him, and further inquiries found that Harris was a “very troublesome fellow.” He was fined 40 shillings with an alternative of two months imprisonment.
Like many other public houses, the Oak Tree was utilised by the authorities for many varied purposes. For example, in 1894, an inquest was held at the premises following the suicide of 49-year-old rivet maker, Joseph Parsons, who lived in Terrace Street, a road that led down to the back of the Oak Tree. Tragically, the deceased went missing after a bout of depression and his mother, with whom he lived, began searching for him; in doing so she discovered a razor blade covered in blood.
Alarm
On raising the alarm, it later transpired that her son had cut his throat and had thrown himself down a well. The body was afterwards recovered by a neighbour Samuel Grove and a local constable, PC Jewson. It was Joseph Parsons’s brother that had the unfortunate task of identifying the body and who explained that his brother of late had not been “in his usual spirits” and had uncharacteristically shied away from any meaningful conversation with him. It was also reported by an unnamed witness that Joseph Parsons had been complaining of “having no work”
and worrying what would become of him when he grew old. His monetary concerns were heightened by the knowledge he had connections with building societies and money clubs to which he had to pay £1 per week; he had expressed anxiety as to “how he should meet the loans.” It was reported that the deceased’s neighbour Samuel Grove had last seen him alive at about 9.30pm on the Saturday before the discovery of his body; this had been at the Blackheath National School where Parsons was present to pay his club money. Grove explained it was here that he appeared to be “very strange in his manner.” It was not until 9am the following morning that Grove had been informed that the troubled Parsons had been found down a well. The coroner was told that Samuel Grove had procured a drag and that after some time had succeeded in bringing Parsons’s body to the surface. A juryman explained that the deceased had recently met with an accident to his foot and therefore had asked his employer to provide him with “easier work.” His employer had declined his request causing Parsons to drift deeper into his mental malaise.
The coroner concluded that, “deceased committed suicide whist in a state of unsound mind.”
Before leaving the 19th century I feel duty bound to recall another father and son who in their respective roles called time on those who imbibed at the Oak Tree. Thomas Priest (Senior) started his working career as a horse nail maker before adventuring up the heady slopes of Waterfall Lane and through the doors of The Oak.
Managing
Caveats considered, Thomas took up his position in c.1886 after previously managing the Riddins Tavern in Old Hill some five years earlier although (and not for the first or last time!) records continue to aggravate this author with its inconsiderate ambivalence which on this occasion I will set aside; this I have done as – and admittedly so – I have only undertaken a cursory glance at the dates, years and other figures that surround Thomas Priest Senior, mainly as his life appears somewhat uneventful and time is not sufficient to indefinitely thrash out anything more substantial. He is retired by 1900 and living in nearby Darby Street in a private building nestling somewhere between numbers 20 and 30.
So, it is to his son Thomas (Junior) that we now focus our attention with the hope of something more compelling. He appears to have commenced his labours at the Oak Tree in c.1901, but a sepia photograph of the Oak Tree came into my possession two years ago with a suggested date of c.1898, a year which partially bridges a gap, as other information suggests there was a decade long void between the end of Priest Senior’s stay (1891) and the beginning of his son’s duties. Nonetheless, the photograph, as rare as proverbial hens’ teeth, clearly shows the licensee’s name betwixt the facade’s upper and lower windows. Outside, stand five people – all men I believe – two pairs in casual conversation with the fifth between them gazing outwards towards what must be the Mission Church. To this grouping’s right, a small boy of indeterminate age appears to be walking towards them, the whole scene placid and reminiscent of an afternoon stroll on a Sunday afternoon.
The view in many ways is remarkably unchanged from how it is seen nearly 150 years later. The public house of today appears to be of similar dimensions, a narrow and sharply angular pathway called Higgs Field to the premises’ right still in place which inevitably leads up to Terrace Street, the home of the previously mentioned Joseph Parsons whose fate is now well documented. Two horse and carts stand idly outside, one gently grazing on a meagre tuft of grass; perhaps the owners or passengers are inside resting whilst their equine companions also relax preparing for their either arduous journey upwards or sudden cascade in a southerly manner on this giddiness inducing hill.
The small building, slightly more elevated, and to the right of the Oak Tree was popularly known as The Lodge and for good reason. Such an attribution can be understood when looking at an event that took place on Saturday, June 1st, 1913. On that day, the remains of Albert Priest were laid to rest at St Paul’s Church, Long Lane in Blackheath. The deceased met his death at the Fly Colliery five days earlier. The funeral procession was evidently large as 70 of his fellow workers were in attendance in addition to 50 Free Gardeners whose headquarters were at the Oak Tree Lodge.
Fraternal
The Order of Free Gardeners was a fraternal society founded in the 17th century and distinct from Freemasonry; its concerns were primarily connected with mutual insurance as was popular in the 19th century, its branches known as Lodges and thus the more than obvious link to the afore-mentioned building. Another meeting of the Free Gardeners from 1896 also helps us with another matter. In that year, a meeting took place at the building of members of the Sunflower Lodge, to mark their fifth anniversary. The host of the event proposed a toast, “Success to the Sunflower Lodge,” which was drunk “most heartily.” It turns out the host was none other than Thomas Priest Junior and therefore providing more confirmation that he succeeded his father earlier than first thought.
The licensees that followed the Priests were large in number, no one remaining “mine host” for any substantial number of years; indeed, nearly 40 men and women for the century that followed stood where their predecessors had experienced the brawls, arguments, meetings, and inquests the premises had been witness to.
The name of the Oak Tree at some uncertain point, maybe late 1970s, early 1980s, yielded to change once more; this time, the environment and culture even altered the way in which the venue now functioned as the fashion for the wine bar grew in popularity, and at Waterfall Lane Maxy’s opened its doors, perhaps to a newer, younger clientele demanding change through its appearance and the type of service offered. History though is never one to gather moss at its feet and by the mid1980s the premises had become empty and disused, the new vogue perhaps waning in its infancy.
Flames
A week before Christmas in 1987, Cradley Heath fire officers found themselves at the premises shortly after midnight; that very early Wednesday morning bore witness to the building well alight, the flames wreaking havoc and the owner untraceable. It seemed for a brief time that the premises and all that was connected and went before it was to disappear in the flames that were consuming all around.
However, by August 2nd, 1988, a new chapter opened, and the premises were re-born. It seemed only fitting that the name above the door as its first customers arrived on that new day read simply, The Waterfall. Twenty or more years later, it is refreshing to know that in a world of closures these premises still stand, this Blackheath elevation waiting for more stories, the sublime, and the humdrum, to be collated and written about by some other future writer keen to preserve its tales and oddities but more importantly the history and heritage of its people.