The White Lyon Inn Potton

The White Lyon Inn: Potton

This old inn belonged to Simpson’s Brewery of Baldock [Hertfordshire] which has its deeds at Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies [CRT110/102]. Thomas George and Joseph Simpson bought the Baldock High Street brewery from Morris Pryor in 1853. His grandfather John Pryor took over the lease of the brewery in 1799. It had been built by Robert Thurgood in 1730.

Simpson’s must have inherited the former White Lyon from Robert Thurgood who bought it before he built his brewery or from one of his predecessors because by 1720 it was no longer a public house. In that year George Pedly of Potton made his will [WG88] and in it he devised the White Lyon, which had, by then been subdivided into several tenements in the occupations of Thomas Wales, Widow Moone, Widow Waller, Appleby Sparks and Pedly himself to his son George.

References:

• CRT110/102: Simpson’s Brewery deeds: 18th century
• WG88: will, of George Pedly: 1720