Places…..Public Houses

This is a parish that was celebrated for the number of licensed premises, which reached a peak in the second half of the 19th Century and steadily reduced over the 20th Century. The majority of on-licenses were for beer-houses, which were very different from the gastro-pubs of today. On this site the term public house is used as a catch-all generic term to cover all premises licensed for the purchase and consumption of alcohol on the premises.

The Bell in Cheney Street and the Green Man on the corner of Hay Street and Bogs Gap were the only fully licensed “inns” in the village in the 18th and 19th centuries. After the passing of the Beerhouse Act 1830 there was a dramatic increase in the number of beer or ale houses, as to open a beerhouse you paid a small fee to the Revenue and received an automatic licence to sell ale or beer for consumption on the premises.

In rural locations, such as ours, beerhouses often failed to provide sufficient income for the owners and were run in conjunction with other occupations. In the case of married couples, the wife would generally play the major part in running the beerhouse, whilst the husband might cultivate a smallholding or have a trade such as carpenter, butcher or shoemaker. Or the beerhouse would double as a grocer’s shop.

Click on any of the eighteen public houses listed to read its history. Scroll down as necessary…..