BRENTFORD PUBS No2

The oldest pub in Brentford today is probably the White Horse
in Market Place. It is mentioned in the burial register of 1603
recording the death of one George Wood's dwellings at the sign
of the White Horse in the Market Place'. It was in an earlier
house on the site of the left hand building of the present pub
premises that J M W Turner's uncle lived and worked.
In 1718 The Weekly Journal chronicled a brutal murder committed
at an inn in Brentford known as the 'Tumble Down Dick'. This
pub's location is not known but it may have been the Grapes at
the Ferry that is described in an 1878 account of Brentford as
a very old house, said to be the haunt of highwaymen waiting for
low tide to enable them to cross the Thames. A new building was
put up on the site in 1880 when it was known as the Bunch of Grapes
Hotel, and later the Ferry Hotel. In 1884 a porpoise, caught locally
and measuring 7ft 6in, was stuffed and displayed in the pub. The
Hotel surrendered its licence in 1922 and the building was used as
offices before being demolished in 1983. The Grapes may also have
been the inn mentioned by Samuel Pepys in his dairy for 20 August
1665: 'To Branford, and there at the inn that goes down to the
water-side, I light and paid off my post-horses, and so slipped
on my shoes, and laid my things by, the tide not serving, and to
church where a dull sermon and many Londoners. After church to
my inn and eat and drank and so about seven o' clock by water and
got, between nine and ten to Queenhithe.
Many Brentford's pubs were simple alehouses serving the working
people of the town. The best known were the old coaching inns;
the Red Lion, which stood on the south-east corner of Market place,
the Three Pigeons, which stood on Market Place's south-west corner
and the Castle Hotel at 208 High Street. The Red Lion is probably
the' Lion' inn in Brentford where in 1446, Henry V1 held a Chapter
of the Garter at which two new knights of the Garter were appointed.
It was in the Great Room of the Red Lion that the magistrates sat
and dispensed justice in the 17th century, although in 1670 they
transferred to the Three Pigeons, owing to some disagreement with
the landlord. Two years later they returned after receiving a
letter of apology. It was also in the Red Lion that divine service
was held while the Chapel of St Lawrence's was being rebuilt. The
Red Lion in Market Place is not to be confused with Brentford's
other Red Lion. This was originally at 318 High Street (on the
west corner of Ealing Rd) but when it closed in the 1960s it was
rebuilt on the east corner of Ealing Rd and was well known in the
1970s and 1980s as a venue for live music. McDonalds purchased
the building in 1996 and replaced it with the present eateries.
The Three Pigeons (sometimes known as the Three Doves) was
originally called the Crown and is first recorded as such in 1436.
Early in the 17th century it was kept by John Lowin, a retired actor
and friend of Shakespeare, The playwright was presumably familiar
with Brentford; for he alludes to the town in the Merry Wives of
Windsor and he is said to have visited the pub. His contemporary
Ben Johnson mentions the Three Pigeons in The Alchemist (1610):
'We will turn our courage to Braynford-westward My bird of the
night - to the Pigeons'. The magistrates held their court in the
Three Pigeons in the 18th and early 19th centuries before
transferring to a rented room in the newly built 'Town Hall'
in 1850. Sessions of the County Court were also held in the
Three Pigeons and it was the usual venue for entertainments
organised by the local Vestry. In 1840, when Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert passed through the town on their wedding day, it
was this inn that prepared a feast for the local schoolchildren
and was illuminated in the evening its stables, stretching right
back to the River Brent, had standing for 70 horses, a coach
house and an ostler's dwelling place. Faulkner writing in 1845,
before the inn went through a drastic alteration, describes it
thus: still in its ancient state, having about 20 sitting and
sleeping apartments, connected by a projecting gallery at the
back and communicating by several staircases to the attics with
numerous dark closets and not renewed after 1915.The building
was practically burnt to the ground in 1920 when it was used as
shops and offices. It was demolished in 1950; Thanet House now
stands on its site. The Castle Hotel originally known as the
Harrow was associated with a coffee house in the early 19th
century, although it was nearly totally destroyed by a fire in
1823. The building was an ancient one occupying a large patch of
ground, the stable yard to the rear stretched as far as Brentford
Butts and in 1832 long distance stagecoaches stopped there every
half hour. In 1904 the Castle also possessed a theatre which gave
performances every Saturday and Monday The Hotel closed in 1936
and the building was later demolished and Brentford's old post
office put up on the site in 1960 (this has now moved across the
street). There is no space here to mention all the pubs in Brentford
but we learn from the visit of the writer of the Licensed Victualler's
Gazette article in 1881 that two of Brentford's pubs were remarkable
for the frescoes adoring their walls. At the Black Bull 350 High
Street. There were panels depicting Native Americans lassoing wild
horses, Indians shooting a tiger and a herd of wolves attacking a
sleigh and its occupants. Nobody could tell the visitors anything
concerning the artist, but when the Gazette's sleuths reached the
Prince of Wales (346 High Street) they found similar frescoes, one
of which was signed 'F. Stuart 1872'. They were informed Stuart was
a scenery painter for Sandster's circus, which would explain all the
wild animals. During the 18th century, there was a notorious pub on
Brentford Ait, which is now just a tangle of trees called the Swan
or the Three Swans; it was famous for its eels and its noisy
clientele. This led to its closure in 1796 because of complaints
from residents of Kew who described it as 'a great nuisance to
this parish and neighbours on both sides of the river'.

---

I hope you enjoy the rest
Don't forget to send your Comments

To return to HOME PAGE, Click on BACK button,
top-left corner of this page.

Last Updated: 21st NOVEMBER 2005