The Prince of Wales Beerhouse Sandy
3 and 5 Ivel Road - site of the Prince of Wales - April 2010
The Prince of Wales Beerhouse: 3 Ivel Road, Sandy
The countywide register of alehouse licences of 1876, when the Prince of Wales was owned by Simpson’s Baldock Brewery states that the building was first licensed in 1862. It was a beerhouse and lay on the east side of Ivel Road, then called Water Lane, close to the junction with the High Street
In 1875 John Truin, licensee of the Prince of Wales, reported Jesse Medlock for being drunk and disorderly in his house. Truin asked him to leave and Medlock said he would not go. Medlock was duly fined £1 with costs of 10/6 at the next petty sessions [HF147/4/723].
The countywide register of alehouse licences of 1903 reveals that the nearest licensed house was 260 yards away, that the state of repair of the Prince of Wales was good and that it had two front doors and one back door.
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 Prince of Wales [DV1/C27/36] found it owned by Simpson’s Baldock Brewery and occupied by Frank Daniels, who paid rent of £22 per annum, fixed the previous year.
The brick and slate detached building comprised a tap room, three living rooms (later annotated to two living rooms and a pantry), a kitchen, a washhouse and an outside w. c. Three bedrooms lay upstairs. Trade was about a barrel of beer per week and takings were about £7 per week including tobacco. The valuer commented: “Rotten Situation”.
Sadly Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service does not have many records relating to the beerhouse. As it was owned by a Hertfordshire brewery the deeds, which stretch from 1764 to 1866 lie with Hertfordshire Archive Service [CRT110/112]. The beerhouse closed in 1961 and became a private house but that was demolished and the current [2010] houses erected on the site.
References:
- CRT110/102: Simpson & Company deeds at Hertfordshire Archives Service: 1764-1866;
- HF147/4/723: report of a drunken customer: 1875;
- GK307/23: site plan: c. 1898
List of Licensees: note that this is not a complete list. Italics indicate licensees whose beginning and/or end dates are not known:
1872-1880: John Truin;
1880-1913: John Thomas Odell, market gardener;
1913-1924: Herbert Truin;
1927-1957: Frank Wilfred Daniels;
1957-1961: Ivy Patricia Daniels;
Beerhouse closed July 1961