Pubs, Inns and Alehouses

 

Coddington has two pubs today: 

  • The Plough Inn, where they have been serving pints to villagers for well over 200 years (our earliest direct reference to the Plough is from 1805).  This site and the building survived a major road realignment when the (old) A17 was driven across Newark road and through the centre of the village from Beacon Hill.

  • The Inn on the Greenwas once part of a farm and malting complex.  It featured as a private house – the Dice House, until the end of the 1950s when it became the Dice House Country Club.  By the 1990s it was established as theInn on the Green, becoming part of a steakhouse chain.

Other village watering holes have come and gone:

  • The Catch’em Inn (aka Blue Bell) – once stood at a bend of Newark Road, close to a tollbar.  It was also known as the Blue Bell, and was part of a smallholding.  There is a reference in the Lincoln, Rutland,and Stamford Mercury (Friday, 15 Sep 1786) to Mr Richard POYNTELL being master of the Bell public house, “generally known by the name Catch-’em-inn“.

Copies of Alehouse keeper’s recognizances (bonds) for 1822 to 1826, held by Nottinghamshire Archives (C/QD/LV/3/4/5 [+ 4/5/5, 5/5/8, 6/5/8 and 7/5/7]), quote Thomas GOSS as keeper of The Blue Bell at that time.  

Also, a notable and delightful article from the Nottingham Review and General Advertiser for the Midland Counties (19 July 1833) proclaims – “Mr. James MARSHALL, the jovial landlord of the Bell, commonly called Catch’em Inn, in the parish of Coddington, near Newark, in taking a hive of bees, in full profit, found to his inexpressible surprise, the astonishing weight of 40lbs weight of honey and comb, the produce of the industry of this little tribe.  What a lesson is to be learned from this, being diligent in business.” 

By the time of the 1918 Estate Sale, the inn had ceased to be a pub, but the area was still known as “Catch-em-Inn corner“.  The smallholding buildings there were eventually demolished to make way for the A1 road.

  • The Globe Inn or Old Globe Tavern once stood on Main Street opposite Hall Farm.  It too had ceased serving by the time of the 1918 Estate Sale, and the buildings were later demolished.
  • The Red Lion on Main Street, almost opposite the lower entrance to Church Lane, lasted well into the 1960s.  However it and nearby cottages were also demolished in the “improvements” of the 1970s.

The_Plough_The_Red_Lion_Inn_Coddington_A_849.jpg

Main Street, Coddington with the Red Lion opposite Church Lane and the Plough Inn in the background on the left

  • The Rose and Crown was sited “north on Turnpike Road … in Linger Leas” and was kept by John BIRKETT and his wife Ann, before 1797. There are a series of assignments, mortgage transactions etc around 1797, including a specific reference to the “Public House known by the sign of the Rose and Crown” being described as “late in the occupation of John BIRKETT“.  There is also inference before this that Thomas WAITE held the property as “victualler or “servingman” and, following his death on 12th Dec 1788, it’s not clear if his widow, Anne WAITE (née DAWS), kept the pub before marrying John BIRKETT on 13th January 1794.  William CARBY (the younger) took possession in 1797, closing the Rose and Crown Public House and subsequently building a cottage and a blacksmith’s shop on the site.
  • The Stamford Mercury of 13th Oct 1815 carried an advert announcing “To be Sold by Private Contract, All that old-established & well-accustomed Freehold Public-House, the Carpenter’s Arms, in Coddington“.  It described the property as also consisting of a “Stable, Outbuildings and Appertenances” and in the occupation of (presumably) tenant publican, Benjamin JOHNSON “who is under notice to quit at Old Lady-day next“.  Although no other references have been found for this pub name in Coddington, the year before, at son, Simon’s, baptism Benjamin (with his wife Jane) is noted in the Coddington Baptism Register as living in Coddington and being a publican.

No doubt there were other public/ale/beerhouses before these.  The earliest reference to ale selling is in the court records; in 1654 Goodwin FOREMAN and William CROSLY, common brewers at Coddington, were fined 4d for “not selling their ayle according to ye statute“.

 

According to a 1912 Directory, the population of Coddington “is largely engaged in malting during the winter months”.  Malting also once formed a good part of the business empire of Coddington Hall’s owners, the THORPE family.

 

A comprehensive list of Coddington publicans, victualers and beer sellers, spanning the ages, has been compiled from the parish records, trade directories, census data and newspaper reports. [here].