The Pheasant Public House Eversholt

The countywide licensing register of 1876 gives us a date of 1864 for the first licensing of the Pheasant, though this has to be treated with some caution as dates given in the register have proved inaccurate in other cases. The owner was Charles Crouch, who was still listed as owner in the countywide licensing register of 1891 where it shows that he leased the property to Newport Pagnell [Buckinghamshire] brewers Allfrey and Lovell. The property stands in Tingrith Road at Lower Rads End.

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 the Pheasant found that the beerhouse was owned and occupied by James Thomas Coles. The valuer commented: “”Good house. Modern” [DV1/C131/38-39].

The property comprised a bar with two beer pulls, a tap room, two living rooms and a kitchen downstairs with four bedrooms and a boxroom above. Outside were a number of timber and tiled buildings – a stable for three horses, a coachhouse, a piggery and two wood barns. Trade was half a 36-gallon barrel per week. The valuer noted that the beer came from Charles Wells of Bedford and cost £4/14/- per barrel and that in the previous year 26 barrels had been purchased. Takings were about £200 per annum.

James Coles also owned three adjoining pieces of land totalling 6.776 acres, of which just under an acre was used as an orchard. The last record of the pub is in the Ampthill division licensing register which ends in 1959 [PSA5/2]. The following register [PSA5/5] begins in 1968 and does not include the Pheasant. Today [2016] it is a private house called Thymes Close.

Sources:

• PSW3/1: Register of Alehouse Licences - Woburn Petty Sessional Division: 1868-1949;
• PSA5/2: Register of Alehouse Licences - Ampthill Petty Sessional Division: 1934-1959;
• PSW3/2: Register of Alehouse Licences - Woburn Petty Sessional Division: 1949-1953

List of Licensees: note that this is not a complete list. Italics indicate licensees whose beginning and/or end dates are not known:

1876-1877: Edwin Fazey, Fasey or Pheasey;
1877: George Robinson;
1877-1878: Charles Richardson;
1878: Charles Horwood;
1878-1884: James Linnell;
1884-1885: John Robert Hall;
1885-1889: George Potts;
1889-1890: Henry Trice;
1890-1891: Oliver Davis;
1891-1892: William Redfearn;
1892-1926: George Coles;
1926-1928: James Thomas Coles;
1928-1932: William Robert Clarke;
1932-1940: John Marlow Tearle;
1940: John Allen;
1940-1946: Stanley Charles Edwards;
1946-1959: Norman Max Rhodes.

Public house closed between 1959 and 1968.