The Brickmakers Arms Beerhouse Keysoe

The Brickmakers Arms is first mentioned in a countywide licensing register of 1876 as a beerhouse with no sign, occupied by John Hawkins. He is first mentioned in a directory as a beer seller in 1869. The owner in 1876 was T H Murfin of Great Staughton [Huntingdonshire]. The countywide licensing register of 1891 names the beerhouse as the Bricklayer’s Arms. The owner is now given as the “Pertenhall Poor”, presumably the Pertenhall Poors Charity, William H Murfin being given as the lessee and Thomas Hawkins as the licensee. This suggests that T H Murfin was likely the lessee from the Pertenhall charity in 1876.

In 1910 a survey of all property was taken out to discover ownership, tenancy and rateable value. This was so that comprehensive rates could be set for the first time, to pay for welfare reforms in David Lloyd-George’s pioneering 1909 budget. No such all-reaching survey had been undertaken since the Domesday Book of 1086, leading this survey to be nicknamed the Domesday Survey. The rating book identifies the beerhouse as being in Keysoe Row but, unfortunately, the map for the eastern part of the Row does not survive. As the number allotted to the property does not occur in Keysoe Row West of the western part of Keysoe Row East this draws the conclusion that the cottage must have been somewhere in the vicinity of Oxford Farm.

Other than licensing registers Bedfordshire Archive and Record Service has no other records of this beerhouse, which closed in 1912, the licensing registers [PSS3/2 and PSS3/3] noting that there was no application to renew the license in that year.

Sources

• PSS3/1; Sharnbrook Petty Sessional Division licensing register: c. 1901;
• PSS3/1; Sharnbrook Petty Sessional Division licensing register: c. c.1903;
• PSS3/1; Sharnbrook Petty Sessional Division licensing register: 1904-1930

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

1869-1876: John Hawkins;
1885-1898: Thomas Hawkins;
1902: Edward Brown;
1902-1904: William Charles Parnell;
1904-1908: Arthur Toms;
1908-1912: Arthur Tibbutt
Closed 1912