The Live and Let Live Public House Pegsdon
The Live and Let Live April 2015
The countywide licensing register of 1876 states that the Live and Let Live, then a beerhouse, was first licensed in 1855. It was owned by Simpson and Company of Baldock [Hertfordshire].
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 beerhouse [DV1/C62/54] found it owned by Simpson & Company and tenanted by A J Levett whose rent was £7 perc annum as it had been "for a hundred years"! This is clearly an exaggeration but may simply have been the valuer's way of indicating a long time. The valuer noted: "Was four cottages. Very clean inside".
The premises comprised a private bar and a public bar (both "good" - "Very good bars for a country house"), a beer cellar, a larder, a kitchen and eight bedrooms ("two used for lumber"). Outside was a wood and corrugated iron barn and stable. Trade was one 36 gallon barrel per week and forty dozen bottles of beer per annum, the valuer noting: "She says four dozen per week". The valuer commented: "Only pub within 1¾ miles, but very few people live at Pegsdon. Does fairly good trade in Summer otherwise very poor. Bad state of repairs".
Simpson and Company was floated on the Stock Exchange in 1935 as Simpson's Brewery Limited. It was taken over by Greene King in 1954 and in 1963 became Greene King (Baldock) Limited. A full license was granted to the Live and Let Live in 1957 and today [2015] the Live and Let Live remains a public house.
List of Licensees: note that this is not a complete list. Italics indicate licensees whose beginning and/or end dates are not known:
1864-1891: William Allen;
1891-1904: Hannah Allen;
1904-1908: Alfred William Allen;
1908-1912: Elizabeth Allen;
1912-1940: Albert Jonathan Levett;
1940: Alfred Ernest Pedley;
1940-1951: William Burnett;
1951-1955: Alfred Harris;
1955-1956: Sidney Herbert Sherwood;
1956-1959: George Charles Whiteman;
1968-1976: Dennis Richard Orson;
1976-1984: Donald Stott;
1984-1988: Anthony David Shelvington;
1988-1995: Stephen Paul Hale