Maidenhead’s Historic Inns

Transcript

A lost age of inns … and short measure

THIS week we look at a few of Maidenhead’s historic inns. Sadly, most of these inns have now disappeared and been replaced by shops and offices over the last two centuries.

The earliest known recorded inn was the ‘Bulle’, recorded in 1459 in the Bray Court Rolls when “Thomas Hille Tithingman presented that William Mordall holds an inn called the ‘Bulle’ and takes exorbitant gain”.

A later court roll of 1489 records that “Alice Buckland holds an inn called the Bulle and takes excessive gain”.

Later landlords of the inn – as late as the 19th century – were fined for giving short measure as late as 1812.

The Bull Inn stood on the Bray side of the High Street (up to the late Victorian period the middle of the High Street was the boundary between the parishes of Cookham and Bray) close to Ives Place where the Town Hall now stands, and remained an inn until 1870.

The inn was later converted into a chapel and priest-house for William Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford.

The Bear Inn also stood on the Bray side of the High Street somewhere in the middle of the High Street near to the old Guildhall.

It is also mentioned in the Court Rolls in 1489, where it was “presented that John Ffraunces holds an inn called ‘the Beyre’ and charges an unlawful price for provisions”.

It was extremely well placed and a covered way led from the Park Street entrance to the Guildhall direct to the inn.

The Bear remained an inn until 1845 and was later replaced by the current Bear Inn at Chapel Arches.

The Bear was also used to quarter cavalry until the barracks were built in Windsor in 1800-04. Officers were quartered in the Bear and the rank and file in the Bull.

There was also an inn known as the Fighting Cocks which stood under and at the back of the Guildhall.

On the Cookham side of the High Street stood the ‘Greyhound’ which dated from at least the 16th century. The inn was made famous as it was where Charles I met with his children before being executed in London on July 16, 1647. This historic building – which stood on the site of the National Westminster Bank – was recorded as one as the best furnished inns in England, and was destroyed by fire in 1735.

At the top of Castle Hill, where the Windsor Castle Public House now stands, was Cook’s Folly. Before it changed its name to Castle Hill, it was called Folly Hill, after the inn. It is first recorded as Cook’s Folly in 1682. Parts of the inn’s original cellars survive in adjacent buildings.

This is the only historic public house in Maidenhead which still survives and operates as a pub to this day.

■ THEN: Engraving of the ‘Bulle Inn’ which stood opposite St Mary’s Church in the High Street c.1810; right, postcard (1911) showing Arthur Upson, Chemist, which occupied the Bear Inn building during the second half of the 19th century onwards.

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