More pubs in Shortmead Street STILL using The Royal Oak as our focal point, we look at seven pubs in Shortmead Street. Immediately opposite Brunts Lane is The Coach and Horses (49/51), which was first mentioned in the Manor Court Book in 1719 as an aleh

More pubs in Shortmead Street

STILL using The Royal Oak as our focal point, we look at seven pubs in Shortmead Street.

Immediately opposite Brunts Lane is The Coach and Horses (49/51), which was first mentioned in the Manor Court Book in 1719 as an alehouse.

Always fully licensed, it never developed into a coaching inn although many local carriers operated from the premises. It remains as the only pub in Shortmead Street.

Opposite the Long Twitchell at 67 Shortmead Street is Travis Perkins building supplies depot.

This was the Plough alehouse in 1744 and from 1796 became the Blue Ball.

When it closed in 1896 Ellis and Everard purchased the building and their successors still trade there.

On the other side of the road was the Peacock beerhouse at number 140. When the pub opened in 1856, small houses surrounded it and trade was mostly local.

The beerhouse closed for good in 1961.

Moving northwards, at number 89 was The Black Swan, built in about 1760. Dan Albone moved there from the Ongley Arms in 1886 when the brewery rebuilt it as the Ivel Hotel.

Adjoining was number 91, the Ongley Arms, built in 1785 on the site of a Quaker Meeting House.

This is where Dan Albone was born in 1860 and later started his first cycle works. It was registered as a common lodging house in 1882 with accommodation for 15 lodgers. It remained fully licensed and a lodging house.

Although owned by different breweries, both the Ivel Hotel and Ongley Arms closed in 1918.

They were bought by RA Jordan Ltd and operated as a coach building works and garage.

In 1849 the third pub to open in this small area of the town was number 105 the Running Stream beerhouse.

It was upgraded to beer and wine in 1943 and fully licensed in 1949. It closed in 1974

Finally, the Lion beerhouse at Bells Brook opened in 1858 and closed 1957.

It was actually in Northill parish and is now Sainsbury's petrol filling station.

By necessity details in these articles have to be brief and I have not included six other Shortmead Street pubs.

These were number 28 The Half Moon; number. 40 Earl Grey; number 76 Hole in the Wall; number 19 The Wrestlers; and a beer shop at number 84.

An interloper was the coach house of Ivel Bury which was converted into Argyle House Hotel (1971) then Pegasus in 1984, closing in 1989.

The coach house was demolished and replaced by a block of flats named Pegasus House.

Much more detail is included in my book Thirsty Old Town.