Long-vanished pubs could tell stories galore
BUCKETS, pans and a host of hardware dangle from the doorway of the ramshackle shop in Gloucester’s Barton Street you see pictured here, top right, a century ago.
Cobbles are set between the tram tracks and nearby is the Vauxhall Inn.
The hostelry was originally part of a pleasure grounds development called Blenheim Gardens. Built in 1812 this Alton Towers of its time featured a bowling green and tea gardens, staged balls and functions, archery and pigeon shooting contests and was the fashionable place to see and be seen. Gala firework displays were an attraction here on special occasions.
The venture was renamed Vauxhall Gardens and in the years that followed the pleasure park was covered with the terraced houses of Blenheim Road, Vauxhall Road, plus Thomas Road, Stratton Road, Victoria Street, Rycroft Street and Hopewell Street.
There was a bowling green behind the Vauxhall until about 1960, as tipplers with long memories may recall. The building was given Grade Ii-listed status in 1973 and although pints are no longer pulled there, the superb tiled front remains a Victoriana gem.
The city had far more pubs 100 years ago than it does today. In Westgate Street alone there were 32 hostelries between the Cross and the bridge.
Southgate Street had 22 pubs. Northgate and Eastgate both had 18. Among the names that have disappeared were the Bunch of Grapes, Mason’s Arms, Swansea House, Prince’s Plume, Severn Trow, Ten Bells, Three Cocks, Three Kings, Bicester Arms, Plasterers Arms, Shipwrights Arms, Golden Hart, Pineapple and Reindeer.
Four pubs were named after dukes, Gloucester, Sussex, Wellington and York. Two took the names of marquises, Bute and Gramby. And there was also the Sir Colin Campbell, named after a Scottish soldier.
There was also a pub called the William Goold, who is listed in a trade directory of the time as a bark merchant with a tannery business at Kingsholm.
In 1900 there was a pub in Barton
Street called the Merryfellow. Its landlord was the splendid and aptly named Edward Wallop. The majority of these pubs closed in the 1920s as a result of licensing laws that came into force during the Great War.
In 1965 The Citizen ran the story of “the city’s instant pub”. The Fleece at Wotton pitch had been demolished and as the locals objected, the brewery agreed to provide a temporary building as a replacement until a new bricks and mortar version could be constructed.
The prefab pub was erected in 24 hours and the licensees, Eric and Audrey Jones, were pictured dispensing free pints of bitter to those who had complained bitterly. The replacement Fleece was never built.
Travelling out of the city centre, Hucclecote’s Wagon and Horses in the 1930s had a landlord named Arthur Saxby, who converted the pub’s outbuildings into stables for race horses. These were run by Mr Llewellyn-jones, who could be seen riding about Hucclecote and its environs on his dappled grey horse in the 1960s.
The stables mostly provided accommodation for horses owned by George Hands, who lived in Torquay. All these creatures in some way shared their owner’s name, so were called Where’s George, George’s Here and the like.
Another four-legged resident was March Tor, which had the distinction of running in the Derby and finishing last.
Many pubs have sporting connections, few more so in Gloucester than the Kingsholm Inn. This pub is known to regulars as The Jockey, which is a reference to the horse racing track that stood on the opposite side of the road before Kingsholm rugby ground was built on the site.
The photograph below right shows the pub as it was between the wars, when the licensee, whose name appears over the doorway, was A V Byard.
He must have enjoyed a brisk trade, because his hostelry was HQ and changing rooms to a number of local clubs, including St Mark’s RFC, Gloucester City Albion AFC, The Old Plutonians AFC, The Northgate AFC, Gloucester Flying Club and St Mark’s Angling Club.
» IF you have the good fortune to find yourself in the handsome Cotswold town of Chipping Campden you may notice that an unusually high number of people are wearing walking boots and carrying a knapsack.
The chances are that they are about to embark upon, or have just completed, the 102-mile trek known as the Cotswold Way, which has Chipping Campden at one end and Bath at the other.
This long-distance footpath was founded this week in 1970. The route was developed as a joint effort between the Ramblers’ Association, the Cotswold Area of Natural Beauty Service and Gloucestershire County Council.
In 2007, also this week by the way, the Cotswold way was officially designated a National Trail. It hugs the Cotswold escarpment, passes through many villages that illustrate Gloucestershire’s eye-pleasing appeal and rises and falls with the landscape.
It’s like walking a coastal footpath, but one that overlooks the Severn Vale rather than the sea.
Chipping Campden has a lot to live up to. If you browse a few guide books you’ll read “this is without doubt the finest of the Cotswold wool towns”, “one of the jewels of the Cotswolds”, or that it has “the most beautiful village street left in the island”.
TS Eliot didn’t agree. The author of The Wasteland, Murder in the Cathedral and Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats was a frequent visitor to Chipping Campden. In the 1930s his sweetheart Emily Hale rented a cottage in the town and when he called by they would take lengthy walks together, perhaps along stretches of what became the Cotswold Way.
Eliot described Chipping Campden as having an “olde worlde atmosphere stinking of death”. Oddly, his endorsement never found its way into any of those guide books mentioned earlier.
“Chipping” means market in old English and it was as a market centre for the woollen industry that Chipping Campden rose to affluence.
Along the curving High Street merchants made rich off the backs of Cotswold Lion sheep built themselves homes that were statements in stone of their wealth and social standing.
At one end of the main street you’ll find a memorial garden to Ernest Wilson.
Born in the town, Wilson was one of those intrepid plant hunters of the Victorian/ Edwardian era who travelled the world risking life and limb to bring back many of the delights Monty Don pricks out and pots up on Gardeners’ World each Friday evening.
Westonbirt Arboretum has a pocket handkerchief tree (Davidia Involucrata) grown from seed brought from China by Ernest Wilson. When a 22-year-old botany student at Kew Gardens, Wilson was commissioned to bring this remarkable plant back to Britain.
Despite never having been abroad before and not being able to speak the lingo, Wilson packed a small bag and set off immediately for Yunnan in the south west of China in search of the handkerchief tree armed with no more than a hand-drawn map.
Not much was known about Yunnan, except that opium poppies were the main crop and the place was ruled by gangs of bandits who fought each other enthusiastically, uniting only to kill any foreigners who were ill-advised enough to venture into their territory.
Against all odds Wilson tracked down an example of the extraordinary tree, or more accurately the stump of one. The specimen had been cut down a day or two before Wilson’s arrival by someone who was building a house and needed the timber.
“Chinese”, as he was nicknamed, and Mrs Wilson were killed in a road accident in Massachusetts in 1930.
But to appreciate this local man’s legacy, next time you’re at the garden centre take a look at the Latin names on the plant labels and see how many of them have “Wilsonii” in the name.
Those that do arrived in this country courtesy of Chipping Campden’s leading horticultural hero.
We could mention Chipping Campden’s St James Church, reckoned to be one of the finest examples of the perpendicular style to be found. Or Grevel House in the High Street that has a lively look about it with gargoyles, a sundial, an arched entrance, stone mullioned windows and all manner of architectural fripperies.
Then there’s the story of Charles Ashbee, who established the Guild of Handicraft in Chipping Campden. And of course Robert Dover’s Olympick Games staged annually in the town.
But you’ll no doubt be eager to pull on your walking boots and set off along the Cotswold Way. So we’ll leave those tales for another time.