The Star Public House Leighton Buzzard

The Star July 2006

The Star Public House: 230 Heath Road, Leighton Buzzard [formerly the Star & Garter]

Bedfordshire & Luton Archives & Records Service has very little information about the public house itself (as opposed to abuttals to it) because it has been owned by Buckinghamshire brewers since at least 1876, there are, presumably, records in the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies in Aylesbury. Indeed Maureen Brown in Transactions of Leighton Buzzard and District Archaeological and Historical Society Number 3 (2009) noted that the first reference she could fine was to Rowsham [Buckinghamshire] brewer Joseph Lucas buying the extablishment from Thomas White in 1791. It is first mentioned, as the Star and Garter, in Bedfordshire & Luton Archives & Records Service sources as an abuttal to another property, in 1808 and was used by the Leighton Buzzard Inclosure Commissioners in the 1840s [BO1427, X244/37]. It was in Heath and Reach until boundary changes in 1933 brought it into Leighton Buzzard.

In the countywide Return of Licensed Premises of 1876 the owners are listed as J. & T. Parrott of Aylesbury; by 1891 this had become Parrott Walker & Company of Aylesbury. At the time of writing [2009] the Star belongs to the Aylesbury Brewery Company.

References:

• X262/2: admission to a cottage bordering the Star and Garter to the north: 1808;
• X262/3: admission to a cottage bordering the Star and Garter to the north: 1813;
• CLP13: Register of alehouse licences: 1822-1828;
• X262/4: admission to a cottage bordering the Star and Garter to the north: 1829;
• BO1427: Leighton Buzzard Inclosure Commissioners' evidence book: 1843;
• X244/37: Inclosure Commissioners meeting at Star to fix boundary between Heath & Reach and Leighton Buzzard: 1844;
• RY747: auction sale held at Star: 1846;
• RY809: admission to a plot of land near the Star: 1847
• 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;
• X262/16: abstract of title to cottages near the Star Inn: 1865-1875;
• RY789: admission to 32 acres near Star: 1868;
• PCHeath&Reach12/3: various parcels of land in vicinity noted as forming part of Heath Farm: 1883;
• PSLB4/2: Register of Alehouse Licences - Leighton Buzzard Petty Sessional Division: 1922-1948

List of Licensees: note that this is not a complete list; entries in italics refer to licensees where either beginning or end, or both, dates are not known:

1822: Ann Tompkins/Tomkins;
1850: Thomas Hickson
1869: George Page;
1870: Thomas Anstee;*
1879: Edmund Whitehead;
1885: Benjamin William Reeve;
1891: Edmund Whitehead;
1892: Robert Shepherd;
1895: Frederick Seddon;
1897: Frederick Wright;
1897: Henry Laxton;
1898: George Rudolph Eisele;
1915: Robert Cecil Hampton;
1915: George Reid;
1917: Charles Burbidge;
1924: George Henry Pateman;
1926: Sidney Herbert Saunders;
1928: Thomas Henry Collyer;
1940: Frederick William Pateman;
1964: Edward Thomas Froude;
1979: Richard Guy Rodbard;
1983: Stephen Geoffrey Smith.

*the Leighton Buzzard Observer reports on the Petty Sessions licence transfer from George Page to Thomas Anstee on 27 July 1870 and from Thomas Anstee to Edmund Whitehead on 13 May 1879 (Thomas Anstee having died on 2 March 1879) - thanks to Mr G Freter for this information.