The New Inn Potton

The New Inn: 7 King Street, Potton

The New Inn (middle distance) in 1904 [X758/1/8/96]

The New Inn, as so often seems to be the case in pubs with this name, was actually rather an old public house. The countywide licensing register of 1876 states that it had then been licensed for over one hundred years. In fact 7 King Street was probably built in or soon after 1783 as its predecessor on the site was destroyed in the Great Fire of Potton in this year. In 1784 the site of 9 King Street was conveyed and that building is described as being bounded on the south by premises of William Smith Devereux, which had been destroyed by fire, "with another messuage rebuilt thereon belonging to Mr. Samuel Wells" [CD840]. A pamphlet setting out the losses by property owners in the great fire records that William Devereux lost £317/16/-. He is described as a servant, clearly a very rich one, suggesting he may have been a senior servant, such as a butler, in a prestigious household. Samuel Wells was a Biggleswade brewer and this evidence suggests that he built the new property on the site of Devereux's old property as the New Inn, an appropriate name. His firm, now Wells and Company still owned the New Inn in 1876. The first mention of the New Inn in surviving sources is in the countywide licensing register of 1822.

Wells and Company was put up for sale in 1899. The sale catalogue describes the New Inn thus [GK1/36]: "containing Tap Room, Parlour, Kitchen, Cellar and four Bed Rooms. Side entrance to good Yard, with Stabling, Coach-house, Barn, Shed &c., Garden at rear. In the occupation of Mr. B. Bland, at the nominal rent of 4s. per annum". The company was bought by Kent businessman George Winch for his son Edward Bluett Winch and was renamed Wells and Winch Limited.

The 1903 countywide licensing register states that the New Inn was owned by Wells and Winch and that it required repairing. The public house stood 119 yards from the nearest licensed premises and had one front and one back door. The public house closed in 1921 becoming a private house.

5 and 7 King Street February 2013

References:

• CLP13: register of alehouse licenses: 1822-1828;
• P64/5/1/105: bill for beer: 1824;
• P64/5/1/117: bill for beer: 1825;
• P64/5/1/136: bill for beer: 1827;
• P64/5/1/155: bill for beer: 1829;
• P64/5/2/165: bill for beer: 1830;
• P64/5/3/356: bill for beer for the ringers: 1839-1840;
• HF143/1: Register of Alehouse Licenses - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1872-1873;
• HF143/2: Register of Alehouse Licenses - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1874-1877;
• HF143/3: Register of Alehouse Licenses - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1878-1881;
• HF143/4: Register of Alehouse Licenses - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1882-1890;
• HF143/5: Register of Alehouse Licenses - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1891-1900;
• Z1039/34/1: epitome of admission of Frederick Archdale and subsequent enfranchisement: 1895-1899;
• GK1/36: sales catalogue: Wells & Company of Biggleswade 1898;
• Z1039/34/2a: conveyance: 1899;
• HF143/6: Register of Alehouse Licenses - Biggleswade Petty Sessions Division: 1900-1914;
• PSBW8/1: Register of Alehouse Licenses - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1903-1915;
• Z1039/34/1: schedule of deeds: 1922.

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

1822-1830: William Franklin;
1839-1840: Samuel Gravestock;
1869-1874: Eliza Armond;
1874-1878: Samuel Manning;
1878-1882: William Watkinson;
1882-1886: Henry Keeling;
1886-1887: Charles Chamberlain;
1887-1888: Mary Juliana Chamberlain;
1888-1890: Frederick William Collins;
1890-1897: Edward Williams;
1897-1906: Benjamin Bland;
1906-1921: Thomas Charter
Public house closed 1921