The Gardeners Arms Beerhouse

Gardeners Arms Beerhouse about 1925 [WL800/2 page 33]

Gardeners Arms Beerhouse: Vinegar Hill, Brook End, Northill [now Sandy]

The only references to this beerhouse in records held by Bedfordshire & Luton Archives & Records Service are in directories and licensing records apart from a photograph and negative from around 1925 taken for albums of licensed premises owned by Charles Wells Limited and a survey carried out in 1927 under the Rating Valuation Act of 1925. This survey reported that the beerhouse also included a derelict cottage and land. It had been built (or rebuilt?) in 1898 of brick and slate and contained a kitchen, tap room, living room and cellar downstairs and three bedrooms above. There was an earth closet outside and water was laid on. Trade was estimated at 18 gallons of mild and two dozen bottles per week and taking around £2/10/- per week. The valuer noted: "House in very good condition, trade much reduced on account of closing hours, men at work go home at 4 and do not return. Increased price of beer has also reduced trade".

The Gardeners Arms was on the east side of Vinegar Hill just to the south of the junction with the road to Beeston and thus the former beerhouse is now in the hamlet of Beeston and the civil parish of Sandy.

 
former Gardeners Arms Beerhouse in Brook End - Jul 2007

References

• WL800/2: photograph: c.1925
• WL801/207: negative of above photograph: c.1925;
• DV1/C/43: 1925 Rating Valuation Act survey: 1927 

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

• 1872-1882: John Wagstaff;
• 1882-1886: Jane Wagstaff;
• 1886-1889: George Wagstaff;
• 1891-1893: William Brown;
• 1893-1899: Thomas Stanford;
• 1899: Elizabeth Stanford;
• 1899-1936: Samuel Stanford;
• 1936-1940: James Housden;
• 1945-1962: Frank Norman

Beerhouse closed 16 Jan 1962