This year's programme of WHO lectures
YouTube videos about Wolds history
Local history articles
early C17th Wymeswold constable's accounts
Wymeswold census returns 1841 to 1901
Wymeswold parish registers 1560 onwards
Wymeswold marriage registers 1560 to 1916
Wymeswold Village Design Statement 2002
WHO publications available as free PDFs
Wymeswold fieldwalking report 1993
In addition the WHO has digitised versions of:
- George Farnham's unpublished MS of notes about Wymeswold medieval history (akin to a 1920s update of Nichols)
- Enclosure Award and later maps plus assorted terriers held in the archive of Trinity College Cambridge
- Marshall Brown's pharmaceutical journal 1869
- Wymeswold school log books 1875–1982
- Wymeswold Parochial Charities minutes 1880–1930
- photographs taken by Philip Brown between 1890s and 1930s
- Sidney Pell Potter's A History of Wymeswold 1915
- Lily Brown's diary 1916
- Church Council Minute Book for St Mary's, Wymeswold 1932–1955
- WI survey of Wymeswold gravestones (St Mary's; Baptist chapel; Methodist chapel; 'The Quakers') 1981–2
- Rempstone Steam Fair programme 1983
Wymeswold's pubs
Bob Trubshaw
Photograph of 'The Song of the Wymeswold Inns' which used to hang in the White Horse but is now in Wymeswold pharmacy. Photograph by Nick Hando.
The names of the eighteenth and nineteenth century inns in Wymeswold have, wrote S.P. Potter in 1915, 'been preserved in local doggerel, written presumably for mine host of the White Horse.'
The Song of the Wymeswold Inns
The White Horse shall chase The Bull,And make The Three Crowns fly,
Turn The Shoulder of Mutton upside down,
And make The Fox cry.
My White Horse shall smash The Gate,
And make The Windmill spin,
Knock The Hammer and Pincers down,
And make the Red Lion grin.
Potter then goes on to state that The Gate was formerly the Rose and Crown.
Philip Brown's photograph of the Shoulder of Mutton, Bull's Head and White Horse. The Gate (formerly the Rose and Crown) and the Three Crowns are beyond them on the left but hidden by the bend in the road. This photograph was taken before 1918.
The same view in 1991. The Bull's Head had long been Collington's butchers shop.
Potter also cited the names of some of the seventeenth century publicans. At that time there seem to have been only two licensed premised in the village. Sadly we don't know the names the premises traded under, but it seems likely that the Three Crowns was one of them.
Just to add confusion some of Philip Brown's photographs show what seems to be The Gate (formerly the Rose and Crown) immediately to the west of the Three Crowns.
Alec Moretti summarised the history of these pubs as they were in 1900, confirming that there were only seven at that time, despite the 'doggerel' quoted by Potter naming nine.
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The Three Crowns was probably the oldest and owned by Miss Toone (of Loughborough; as an investment?) with Henry Hubbard as the landlord and brewer. The manorial courts used to meet here. The Windmill had recently been bought by Home Brewery and Henry Gough was in charge. The Hammer and Pincers had only a Beerhouse licence with the owner and landlord, Leonard Dexter, being one of the village blacksmiths. Henry Orton at the Bulls Head seems to have been a butcher as well as an innkeeper with Midlands Brewery as owners. The White Horse (Kelly's Directory called it The White Hart in 1900) had only a beerhouse licence at that time and was owned by E. J. Collins of Loughborough. The others which have since closed were the Shoulder of Mutton with Arthur Adams as landlord and also one of the carriers of the village; and The Fox (in Brook Street) run by John Smith who was also a brewer.
An illustration of the Hammer and Pincers (on the left) in S.P. Potter's A History of Wymeswold.
When I moved to Wymeswold in 1986 a pub crawl required four stops: The Windmill, the Hammer and Pincers, the Three Crowns and the White Horse.
This how the Windmill and the White Horse looked in April 1987.
Three Crowns in 1991.
The Hammer and Pincers in 1993.
The White Horse was still trading in October 1993. Curiously early in the twentieth century it had been in a different building to the immediate east, but that was demolished around the time of the Second World War.
The White Horse was a house by May 2008.
Marcia and Pete had taken over the Three Crowns by mid-2008.
Isobel Parr took some video of the Three Crowns in May 2016, before a major 'revamp'. It's on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=62QKPU3RFWM
The Windmill in mid-2008.
No one has checked the licensing records to establish when the Shoulder of Mutton ceased to be a pub. It is now called Lindum House or 25 Far Street.
The Fox was badly damaged by fire – I think in the early 1980s. Two-thirds remained a shell until it was rebuilt by Derek Rumsby and Penny Samuelson about twenty years ago.
Does anyone know where the Red Lion once was? If so please email me bobtrubs@indigogroup.co.uk.
Acknowledgement
My thanks to Richard Ellison, Paul Howitt and Ivor Perry.