The Cricketers Arms Public House Caddington
The Cricketers Arms March 2007
The Cricketers Arms Public House: 19 Manor Road, Caddington [also called The Cricketers]
Bedfordshire & Luton Archives & Records Office does not have many records about this public house as a result of its being owned by a brewery outside the county - it began life owned by Dunstable brewer Benjamin Bennett but in 1938 was taken over by Mann, Crossman & Paulin of Whitechapel [Middlesex]. This firm merged with others to form Watney Mann in 1958. Watney Mann merged with Grand Metropolitan Hotels in 1972.
In 1927 this beerhouse was valued under the terms of the 1925 Rating Valuation Act. At that time the owners were still the trustees of Benjamin Bennett, deceased. The valuer considered the Cricketers Arms a "good looking house, long frontage". It consisted of a private bar, tap room, serving jugs and bottle bar, kitchen, scullery and parlour downstairs with, beneath, both a basement and a cellar; above were four bedrooms and outside a coal barn, stable for one horse, barn, two earth closets and a further public urinal and earth closet. Trade was worth two and a half to three barrels a week with six dozen bottles of minerals and fifteen dozen bottles of beer; the licensee "does not know gross takings". Overall it was "not so good as p.130" (i.e. The Chequers).
The Cricketers is still at time of writing [2007] a pubic house.
References:
- PSL6a/1: Register of Alehouse Licences: c.1890-1922;
- PSL6a/2: Register of Alehouse Licences: 1922-1964;
- DV1/C16: rating valuation: 1927;
- WB/S7/2/6: memories of Florence Wild regarding her parents, former licensees of Cricketers Arms: 1963.
List of Licensees: note that this is not a complete list. Italics indicate licensees whose beginning and/or end dates are not known:
1894: Jabez Swain;
1908: Matilda Swain;
1921: Sarah Swain;
1921: Edward Matthews;
1930: Edwin Rainbow;
1933: Albert Peak;
1937: Albert Rodell;
1942: Horace Cyril Marlow;
1953: Albert William McCann;
1958: Robert Millar;
1985: Michael Gerald Duggan and Barbera Evelyn Duggan;
1987: Hillier Farrow;
1987: Patrick Crixen and Philip Bewing;
1989: John Richard William Cardall and Hillier Farrow;
1989: David Percival Smith.