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HAWKINS Family, Farrier's Arms, Hunton Bridge, Abbots Langley, 1851-1966 |
Suzanne Chambers (suze @t ukgateway.net) of London writes: Mary Ann Hawkins lived and ran a Public House called the Farriers Arms in Hunton Bridge. I can see this on the 1881 census. I cannot find a photograph of it anywhere. Is this something you could help me with?
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The pubic house, selling Weller's Ales, in the distance is the Farrier's Arms, with the shop front. The pub on the left is the Maltsters Arms. This picture is from Abbots Langley, A Hertfordshire Village, by Scott Hastie, and dates from about 1910. |
I am not certain when the Farriers Arms was first open, but it was originally adjacent to (or part of) the blacksmith's shop, which would have been well positioned for passing trade on a main road out of London. It was originally a beer house and, frustratingly the names of beer houses are not always recorded, unlike those of inns and hotels. I don't know when it started but I have been able to work out a provisional history from 1851 when Henry Hawkins was a grocer who also sold beer. The Hawkins family was there until the 1891 census when Mrs Mary Hawkins was landlord, and George Romney, the engine driver of a stationary engine lived next door. It seems that John Brookes was there in 1895 and 1899. In the 1901 census Mrs Eliza Rumney is recorded as publican at "Farriers Arms", while her husband George was manager of Gas Works. George was listed as the publican in the 1902 and 1908 trade directories - but maybe his wife did the work and he had another job. For a time it sold beer made by Weller's brewery in Amersham.
Later landlords were William Wright (1912 & 1914),, followed by Frederick Chamberlain (1917, 1922) and John George Robinson from 1926. George Francis Elms kept the pub from 1949 to 1958 and it was finally demolished in 1965