The Labour in Vain Beerhouse Eaton Bray

66 Totternhoe Road July 2012

The Labour in Vain Beerhouse: 66 Totternhoe Road (formerly Westcott Square), Eaton Bray

The countywide licensing register of 1876 states that the Labour in Vain beerhouse opened in 1852. The owner in 1876 was John Batchelor of Dagnall [Buckinghamshire]. He was still the owner at the time of the countywide licensing register of 1891.

By the time of the countywide register of 1903 the owners were Fuller, Smith & Company of Chiswick [Middlesex]. The property was: “clean and in good repair” and was 560 yards from the nearest licensed premises. The beerhouse had one back, one side and one front door. The beerhouse closed in 1914.

The Rating and Valuation Act 1925 specified that every building and piece of land in the country was to be assessed to determine its rateable value. The valuer visiting 66 Totternhoe Road [DV1/C202/45-46] found that it was owned and occupied as a small farm by A. Pryer.

The brick and slate, detached premises comprised three living rooms, a kitchen and a dairy on the ground floor with four bedrooms above. A later hand has noted that the dairy became an office and that one of the bedrooms was replaced by a bathroom and WC. A brick and slate coal shed and a brick and corrugated iron earth closet stood outside. The valuer commented: “Double front, big square type”.

The farm buildings comprised a north and a south block. The north block included: a brick, weather-boarded and tiled cow house for six, an old brick, weather-boarded and corrugated iron cow house used as an open shed (a later hand has noted that this later became used as a garage), a brick, weather-boarded and tiled barn, store shed (later used as a meal house) and a cooling place. At the rear stood a weather-boarded and corrugated iron hen house and four piggeries. The south block comprised a weather-boarded and slated open trap shed. Pryer had two grass fields measuring 1.246 acres and 3.757 acres respectively and an orchard (“poor”) measuring 1.103 acres.

References:

• PSLB4/1: Register of Alehouse Licences - Leighton Buzzard Petty Sessional Division: c.1860s-1949;
• PSLB4/3: Register of Alehouse Licences - Leighton Buzzard Petty Sessional Division: c.1860s-1956.

Licensees: note that this is not a complete list and that dates in italics are not necessarily beginning or end dates, merely the first/last date which can be confirmed from sources such as directories and deeds:

1876-1904: Richard Gadsden;
1904-1906: John Facer;
1906: David Andrews;
1906-1911: Mark Overington;
1911-1914: Arthur Eastaff.
Beerhouse licence not renewed 3rd February 1914