Spotlight on the King's Head Part 3

The King's Head Hotel: a pub?

So, in Part 1 we looked at the very recent history of the King's Head Hotel which has more recently been known as the Ramada by Wyndham, and this was prompted by an article on the Leicestershire Live website about the possible future of the hotel.

Last week we looked at the various types of pub-related establishments that have existed over the years, and concluded that the King's Head was, or had been both a coaching inn and a posting house. 

Extract from the Sun (London) 19 August 1830

This week we shall look at the King's Head in relation to pubs and their offering in the nineteenth century.

This is part of the description of the function of a public house:

"The public house was the place to go for discussion and argument, and often, those who were unable to read would go to the pub to listen to the latest news being read aloud from the newspaper. Also, property sales were often held in public houses, as were shows, like the Nottingham annual Auricula and Polyanthus Show, which were often followed by a dinner. Back rooms of pubs often became home to working-class organisations, like friendly societies and later trade union branches."

Sales

While I have found nothing as yet to support the first of those statements in relation to the King's Head, there is, however, plenty of evidence relating to property sales, meetings of various groups, and events related to specific local societies, taking place at the King's Head. 

Property - in the loosest sense of the word - sales often took place at the King's Head. The earliest reference to this I have found is in 1806 when oak timber that had been felled from The Outwoods was being auctioned at the King's Head Inn (1), the house of Mr Fowler. Interestingly, the sale, which began at 2pm, was preceded by a dinner:

From the Derby Mercury of 13 February 1806, pg 2

An early recorded sale of actual property was advertised in the Leicester Journal of 19 April 1811 the property in this case being seven freehold dwelling houses in the yard of the Wheat Sheaf on Wards End. The auction would be held by Mr Boott, at the King's Head Inn, and particulars could be obtained prior to the sale from Mr Fowler at the aforementioned establishment.

The King's Head was also the venue for the sale of other licensed establishments and in April 1874, an old and well established public house, with a brewhouse, extensive stabling, malt offices, yard, outbuildings and saddlers shop, all set in about 800 square yards, known as the Golden Fleece, was offered for auction there. 

Properties sold at the King's Head weren't just in Loughborough: in March 1814 a valuable freehold estate was auctioned at the King's Head Inn, where Mr Fowler was the proprietor. This estate at Burton-on-the-Wolds, approximately 5.5 miles from Loughborough, was extensive, and including a house, barn and other outbuildings, as well as land:

Extract from Leicester Journal 25 February 1814, pg 4

Perhaps one of the most important nearby local estates to be auctioned at the King's Head was Quorndon Hall, in 1832. Quorn Hall was billed as a highly celebrated sporting residence in the heart of the Leicestershire countryside. Sporting, of course, means horse-related, and there was also available as part of the sale, a magnificent range of stabling for about 50 horses. The whole of the estate which comprised about 117 acres, was freehold. The most recent occupant was Lord Southampton.

Extract from the Nottingham Review and General Advertiser for the Midland Counties
23 November 1832, pg 2

In 1824, although the auction of the freehold manors and estate of Dowsby Hall in Lincolnshire was taking place at the Greyhound Inn in Falkingham, particulars relating to the sale were available from the King's Head Inn, in Loughborough.

Auctions of property continued well into the 20th century. In April 1919, auctioneers W. and F. Armstrong auctioned lots of freehold property, including nos. 43 and 45 Hastings Street (a shop and a dwelling house); nos. 56, 41 and 52 Paget Street; nos. 5,6,7 and 8 Conery Terrace and Conery Passage; no. 196 Freehold Street, a shop and dwelling house at the corner of Freehold Street and Queen’s Road; Fairview Cottage on Queen’s Road; no. 45 Queen’s Road; 2 villas and stables also on Queen’s Road; nos. 9 and 10 School Street; nos. 10 and 12 Burleigh Road; nos. 11, 13 and 15 Chapman Street. Note: not all of these were actually purchased on the day.

In addition to properties, numerous effects were also auctioned off, and the King's Head was regularly the place to go to obtain a copy of the sales catalogue. In 1831, all the useful household furniture and other effects, that belonged to the Rev. Charles Allsopp, now deceased, and which included a four-poster bed, bedding, tables, chairs, wardrobes, chests, kitchen utensils, brewing and dairy utensils, carriage and animals, as well as several acres of cultivated land, was auctioned at the vicarage in Shepshed: catalogues could be obtained from the King's Head Inn.

In a similar vein, catalogues for the 5-day auction of the extensive library of books, and other household furniture and effects (days 4 and 5), belonging to the Rev. William Casson, now deceased, were also available from the King's Head, Loughborough, the sale taking place during September 1829. And what self-respecting local historian wouldn't have popped into the King's Head in January 1831 to pick up a catalogue for the sale of the effects of Saville John Hyde, Esq., latterly of Quorn, which included not only a pianoforte and a library of books, but more specifically, a "fine copy of Nichol's History of Leicestershire, in eight volumes, and many other rare and valuable works." 

Catalogues for sales of animals were also available from the King's Head in Loughborough, for example, in 1825 when Mr Brearey was selling by auction an entire stud of valuable hunters, young horses, broodmares, and the celebrated stallion, Ranzleman, as well as riding equipment upon the death of George Redmond Hulbert, Esq., of Aston Lodge in Derby, catalogues were available from a variety of establishments including the Loughborough King's Head.

And, animals were not the only biological thing on sale at the King's Head. In October 1832 Mr Slater was selling his "new genuine winter tares for seed" both from his corn, hop, seed and cheese warehouse in Castle Donnington, and from the King's Head Inn in Loughborough, the latter every market day, from 1pm to 4pm.

Similarly, in 1861 there was a sale of cattle on Thursday 27 June, and on the next day, Friday 28, this was followed by the annual meeting of the Loughborough Association for the Prosecution of Felons at the King's Head. 

Society meetings and dinners

As mentioned above, many societies met, and many special dinners have taken place in the lovely setting of the King's Head Hotel. Here are some examples from across the ages. 

In December 1834, it was announced in the Nottingham review and General Advertiser for the Midland Counties that the Grand Lodge of Freemasons had agreed to the appointing of a new lodge, the Rancliffe Lodge, which would hold its meetings on the second Tuesday of each month, at the house of John and George Fowler, which was the King's Head Hotel, Loughborough. 

In May 1852, the Trustees of the Burton Charity held their meeting at the King's Head Hotel. At this particular meeting, the trustees were presented with a petition from Loughborough inhabitants, requesting a reduction in the proposed tuition fees.

Until about 1901, the Howe and Charnwood Lodge of the Freemasons held their meetings from April to November in the King's Head, but then moved to the Town Hall.

In April 1928, the annual meeting of the Loughborough Boat Club, which was presided over by Mr F.W.P. Simpson, was held at the King's Head Hotel. The society had had a good year, and the regatta had been particularly successful, and a new boathouse had been built at Zouch. 

The Loughborough Building Society was founded in 1867, and 100 years later, in 1967 a celebratory dinner was held at the King's Head Hotel, with honoured guests including the then mayor of Loughborough, Councillor J.E. Hammond. 

In early 1999, the Leicestershire Chamber of Commerce hosted a luncheon at what was at the time known as the Jarvis King's Head Hotel. The event was for the directors of the National Forest with whom the Chamber wished to forge a close working relationship, in support of the programme of transformation of around 200 square miles of land partly in Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire, where already about two million trees had been planted and were now thriving.   

Financial affairs

Meetings and sales related to finances often took place in the King's Head Hotel. Here's an interesting event from 1828:

At the King's Head, the house of Mr Fowler, an auction was held by B. Payne, on Thursday 7th February at 3pm, at which "One Share in the Loughborough or Soar Navigation" was to be sold.

Meetings related to bankruptcy were relatively frequent:

The occasion in 1826 concerned the case of S. Peters, a grocer at Shepshed; in 1831, the case of William Bissil, a bowl manufacturer of Quorndon was heard, and the bankruptcy case relating to T. Crane, a grocer, took place in 1837.

The building itself

In January 1832 the Leicester Journal reported that a new dining room had opened at the King's Head in Loughborough, and more than 100 gentlemen celebrated with a dinner, accompanied by excellent wine, and Mr Barker, who sang 'in the best style'.

 

As we already know from last week's post, the Bull's Head coaching inn was demolished during a period of road widening in the late 1920s-early 1930s, and replaced with the building we see today. This was also the case for the King's Head so the old building was pulled down and the new building, with its Neo-Georgian frontage onto the widened High Street is the building we see today.

In 1953 some alterations to the relatively new King's Head building were made. I have an inkling that these alterations may have been completed by the Loughborough building firm of Corah, but, because archives are currently closed I have not been able to access the plans.

Conclusion

I think we can conclude from the evidence above that the King's Head, a posting house, until the demise of the mail coach, in favour of transporting mail by train (around 1830), became solely an inn, rather than a public house as I might have suggested last time. 

Next week we'll look into the origins of the hotel's name.

(1) The inn 

The inn was often built along the main public highway, or around a market, and served passing trade, as well as the more wealthy inhabitants of a place, like merchants, guild members, aldermen, justices and the richer pilgrims. See more at Spotlight on the King's Head Part 2.

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough 7 March 2021

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Dyer, Lynne (2021). Spotlight on the King's Head Part 3. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2021/03/spotlight-on-kings-head-part-3.html [Accessed 7 March 2021]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

You can leave comments below, but do check back as my reply will appear here, below your comment.

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne 

Spotlight on the King's Head Part 2

The story of the King’s Head Part 2

Last week we looked at the most recent history of the Ramada by Wyndham Hotel, which had previously been known as the King’s Head. This week, we’ll look at the various names the establishment has had over the years, and see what, if anything, is the significance of these names. In order to do this we need to look more closely at the development of establishments like the King’s Head.

So, I know what constitutes a hotel, and I know what I mean when I refer to a ‘pub’ in the 21st century, but I’m also aware that the word ‘pub’, while these days seems to refer to something many people recognise, does hide a multitude of different names, and historical establishments – inns, taverns, coaching inns, posting houses, beerhouse, alehouses, gin palaces – all with subtle differences.

Pub origins

Apparently, the pubs of today have developed over many years. In the words of Pryah (1):

“customs and design of the public house today are the results of centuries of gradual development and their roots can be traced back to three separate types of establishment, the alehouse, the tavern and the inn.”

And this is in part confirmed by this comment about the pub – an abbreviation for public house - as we know it, as defined by Ainsworth (2):

“a house open to the public. The name refers … to much earlier centuries when individuals would open their houses for the sale of drink. In the 19th century ‘public house’ tended to refer to fully-licensed premises selling all types of intoxicating liquor, as opposed to beerhouses [or alehouses] which sold just beer.”

The thoughts of Tresidder (3), who writes about the licensed premises in Nottingham between 1758 and 1764, suggests the origins of today’s pubs stem from the posting houses, the taverns and the public houses of the past.

The inn 

The inn was often built along the main public highway, or around a market, and served passing trade, as well as the more wealthy inhabitants of a place, like merchants, guild members, aldermen, justices and the richer pilgrims.

The coaching inn

There had been a small number of taverns and alehouses along the highways from as early as the 14th century, but it was in the 17th century that the coaching network began to be established, when the first turnpike acts were passed in 1663. Despite being situated on the main London to Manchester turnpike road - turnpiked around the mid-1700s - the King’s Head in Loughborough has never been a coaching inn.

However, Charles G. Harper (4) writing in the early 20th century, has the following to say about this particular road:

“our ancestors could not complete their journeys between morning and night, and so the inn was a thing of almost the first consideration. Along these great roads of ours there were inns for every class, for every taste, and to suit all purses.”

He makes mention of these inns in the various places that the travellers passed through, including Leicester, where he finds the Grand, the Bell and the White Hart, and Loughborough where the road passes the King’s Head, the Old Bull’s Head, and the Station. The latter would refer to the Station Hotel associated with the Charnwood Forest Railway on Derby Road, as the route in question would proceed from Loughborough to Derby, and thence on to Manchester via the Peak District. 

The Bull’s Head was Loughborough's main coaching inn along this road, with stables where horses could be changed along the journey, as horses could generally only travel about 10 or 12 miles. Although the original building was demolished for road widening, the establishment continued to trade in a new building and today is destined to become a coffee house.

The post or posting house

Graham (5), in his description of Falmouth as the station for the departure of the mail packets, that is, the overseas postal service, mentions the regular coach service which ran to London and which were serviced by a number of inns and taverns.

In 1794, John Palmer had introduced the idea of carrying mail by coach and this led to the building of what were known as post houses along some of the major early roads. The post house would provide refreshment for anyone who might travel on the mail coach, as well as a change of horses and postillion. Sometimes the post house wouldn’t actually have its own stables, but there would be one very close by.

The keeper of the post house would act as the local postmaster, and would either hold onto the mail for people to collect, or would personally deliver it. The posting house might be the forerunner of the hotel, and it is certain that the King’s Head in Loughborough, once known as the King’s Head and Commercial Inn, was indeed such an establishment. Given that the Bull's Head with its stables was very, very close, it would make sense that the King's Head was a posting house, rather than a coaching inn.

Taverns

Sometimes the line of distinction between a posting house and the best tavern in the town was narrow, and some of the oldest taverns, had a superior reputation, as was certainly the case in Nottingham. Ainsworth, writing about Nottingham,  has this definition of a tavern:

“an urban drinking house serving wine and food, mostly to better-off customers. In modern times the term has been adopted by all kinds of pub establishments.”

Pryah defines a tavern as a place that “catered for farmers, lower-class craftsmen and others with a little money to spend; they probably sold wine rather than ale and in addition they also offered food and accommodation.”

The ale or beerhouse to the public house

The mediaeval alehouse served drink, and fed the social needs of the lower orders of the environs, and was rather like what we might call the local today. However, such places were not open on a permanent basis and most of the ale sold was for consumption off the premises. This developed into premises which sold only ale – a term which has been used interchangeably with the word ‘beer’ for over 200 years – so wine and spirits would not be available here. This was often just an ordinary house in which the landlord was licensed to make a room available for serving beer: often the landlord or landlady would lean through a hatch and serve drink to a customer via a pot boy, so not in individual glasses. The law was changed at some point and so such premises were also able to sell spirits, and in 1830 when the Beer Act was passed, duty on beer was abolished and so anyone was allowed to sell beer in their own house upon payment of two guineas.

The public house was the place to go for discussion and argument, and often, those who were unable to read would go to the pub to listen to the latest news being read aloud from the newspaper. Also, property sales were often held in public houses, as were shows, like the Nottingham annual Auricula and Polyanthus Show, which were often followed by a dinner. Back rooms of pubs often became home to working-class organisations, like friendly societies and later trade union branches.

The King’s Head – a coaching house? A posting house? An inn? A public house?

In a trade directory for 1822, John Fowler is listed as the postmaster at the King’s Head and Commercial Inn (and posting house), and states that the mail coach for London leaves the King’s Head at five in the evening, and that for Manchester, Nottingham and Leeds leaves the premises at nine in the morning. In addition to the mail coach, the stagecoach to London, called the Royal Telegraph, departed from the King’s Head every morning at two, and to Manchester every morning at eight.

John Fowler is still listed as the postmaster in a trade directory for 1828-9, and the London mail arrives in Loughborough at eight in the morning and is despatched at six in the evening. The mail from the North arrives in Loughborough at six in the evening and is despatched at eight in the morning.

The situation is similar in 1841 as listed in the trade directory, and John Fowler is still the postmaster. Letters from London arrive every morning at seven, and are despatched every evening at six. Letters from the North arrive every evening at six and are despatched every morning at a quarter past seven. There is an important addition to the entry in this directory that senders would do well to be aware of: “The Box closes an hour before the departure of the mails; but letters are received until the despatch upon payment of one penny each.”

In all three directories, as well as its entry under the general heading of 'Post office', the King’s Head is also listed under the section headed ‘Inns’, and followed by the names of John and George Fowler.

Conclusion

So, it would appear that the King’s Head was both a posting house and an inn. To find out if the premises could at one time also have been described as a public house, pop back next time!

References:

(1) Pryah, Chris (1984). Inns and taverns of Leicester. Blaby: Anderson Publications

(2) Ainsworth, Paul (ed.) (2015). Real heritage pubs, the Midlands: pub interiors of special historic interest. St Albans: CAMRA

(3) Tresidder, R.S. (1980). Nottingham pubs. (Get to know Nottingham – 5). Nottingham: Nottingham Civic Society.

(4) Harper, Charles G. (s.d.). Historic and picturesque inns of old England. London: Ed. J. Burrow

(5) Graham, Frank (1965). Old inns and taverns of Cornwall. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: V. Graham. 3^rd ed.     

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough 28 February 2021

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Dyer, Lynne (2021). Spotlight on the King's Head Part 2. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2021/02/spotlight-on-kings-head-part-2.html [Accessed 28 February 2021]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

You can leave comments below, but do check back as my reply will appear here, below your comment.

Thank you for reading this blog. 

Lynne