A walking tour of High Wycombe’s Easton Street

This is an edited and updated version of an article published in the Bucks Free Press on 16 June 2023. It will be updated as new information comes to light.

Walking today from Crendon Street to Pann Mill it’s hard to imagine that Easton Street once had eight pubs.

If we start our walk on the north side of the street we find number 4 that used to be the One Star and, next to it, number 5 that was once the Seven Stars. The tiny Seven Stars dates to about 1751, though the building is probably older. It was owned, as were many Easton Street’s pubs, by Wheeler’s, whose brewery was on the other side of the street.

The One Star (far left) with sign in the 1890s. The Seven Stars next door (the first building with open canopy) had already closed and become a shop (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library)

The former One Star (offices to let) and the former Seven Stars next door, with new frontage, c1978 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by the High Wycombe Society)

The former One Star beerhouse at number 4 is also an old building, though only a pub from 1852 after Lord Carrington bought the property in that year. According to Mr Charles Raffety, who gave a number of talks on Victorian Easton Street at the turn of the 20th century, the beerhouse was opened by another brewer in opposition to the Seven Stars as a result of an election. The ‘other brewer’ is likely to have been Weller’s of Amersham who held the lease of the pub in 1866. The full story of the One Star/Seven Stars rivalry following  the 1852 general election is contained in the High Wycombe Society 2024 summer newsletter.

By 1888, Wheeler’s were anxious to open pubs in the expanding west end of town. They surrendered the licence of the Seven Stars so as to get a licence for the new Desborough Arms - see my post on ‘The pubs of Bird in Hand and Wycombe’s west end.'

Lord Carrington’s son sold the One Star to Wheeler’s in 1893 who then, rather curiously, renewed Weller’s lease in 1894. As well as being a beerhouse, the One Star was a common lodging house. It closed in 1911 when local brewers agreed to voluntarily surrender a number of licences in Wycombe rather than have the local magistrates choose which licences they would refuse to renew. Closure in 1911 left only two lodging houses in Wycombe, both in Easton Street.

At 23 Easton Street was the Greyhound. It has all the look and feel of a coaching inn, perhaps one built specifically to service the traffic on the turnpike road in the early 18th century. However, trade directories from 1831 to the end of the coaching era show no scheduled coach services calling at the Greyhound. Mr Raffety refers to the pub as a place kept by Tom Baynes where farmers stabled their horses on Sundays while attending church and chapel. It was a Wethered pub in 1866, until sold at auction in 1893. The new owner confirmed in 1894 that it would not remain as a pub. Today this handsome building is offices.

The former Greyhound was, by c1900, Henry Flint’s builder’s offices and yard (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library)

The Goat was on the London side of the St John’s Hospice ruins. Open by 1801 as the Crown & Sceptre it may have been an alehouse well before that. The jetty (the upper floor overhanging the ground floor) suggests it was a medieval timber-framed building. Also a common lodging house it closed voluntarily in 1913, when owned by Wheeler's, being sold at auction in the same year. It later became a shop before demolition for road widening.

The Goat c1900 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library) and, below, the former Goat as a tobacconist in 1934, with the Coach & Horses a few doors away (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press)

Our last pub on Easton Street’s north side was the Coach & Horses. Once a terrace of three cottages, it was licensed by 1735. By the 1860s it was owned by Lucas' Frogmore brewery, passing to Wheeler's Wycombe Breweries in 1898. Its position by the Rye made it an obvious place for football clubs and football competition organisers to meet and celebrate. The upper room of the pub, with its alarmingly sloping floor, seemed never to be short of guests. Only two families were in charge from 1859 until closure, the Georges and the Dents. The Coach & Horses was Easton Street’s last pub, a victim of Easton Street’s redevelopment in the late 1960s and early ‘70s.

The Coach & Horses in 1962 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press)

Crossing the road and walking back along Easton’s Street’s south side will take us to the site of the Two Brewers at 57 Easton Street, where the Law Courts are now. This building (the Compasses until 1857) had been a pub since at least 1794 when the 22-year-old romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote to his brother about his stay there. Coleridge had, unwisely, joined the 15th Light Dragoons under an assumed name to avoid his creditors until, billeted at the Compasses, his commanding officer found out who he really was and later helped arrange his discharge. 

In 1925, the Two Brewers was one of Wycombe’s pubs the magistrates targeted for closure on the grounds of redundancy. Wheeler’s solicitor argued its case and the licence was renewed. But once the magistrates had a pub in their sights they rarely let up. At the 1926 licensing meeting the magistrates argued that the Two Brewers was redundant as it did little trade and that the Cow & Hare and Coach & Horses were not far away. The brewer’s argument was that each pub catered for a different class of customer: the Cow & Hare was a common lodging house and, by definition, low class, whereas the Coach & Horses was a better class establishment leaving the Two Brewers catering for a class of people who would not use either pub. The licence was renewed in 1926 and every year until closure in 1934.  

The Two Brewers in April 1936 after closure (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Wycombe Museum)

At number 72, almost opposite the Greyhound, was the Cow & Hare. This was the last common lodging house on Easton Street, and the last in Wycombe.  

What was a common lodging house? It was a place where poor working people could get a cheap bed (fourpence a night) and a basic meal. The very poorest, who could not afford fourpence, would go to the workhouse. Also called doss houses, common lodging houses were regulated by act of parliament in 1851. They had to be registered and inspected, had a lodging housekeeper and a deputy. The modern equivalent would be a hostel. The South Bucks Standard of 23 March 1906 gives a very full report of a council meeting when the councillors are told about the last borough inspection carried out back in 1894. All lodging houses had been required to make improvements within a month. No further inspection had been made as no one had taken responsibility for carrying it out. One councillor said it was ‘a deplorable thing that in this 20th century, such a state of things revealed by the report should exist.’ Another said ‘it was impossible to make very elaborate arrangements for people of that order. People slept together in the way described in common lodging houses all over the country. Not only were those people the poorest of the poor, but often the dirtiest of the dirty.’ 

The Cow & Hare dated from before 1756. It was noted for its good stables and chairmaking facilities. It closed in 1932 and was swept away by the redevelopment of the street. 

At 89 Easton Street was the Paul Pry, perhaps named after a play written in 1825 about a character that we might now call a Nosey Parker. By 1842 it was the Windsor Castle run by Hosea Boot. By 1866 it was owned by Nevile Reid & Co of Windsor, which may explain the name change. It’s clear from the number of licensees in the 1890s that it was a troubled pub. Despite this, Wheeler’s Wycombe Breweries, who had acquired the pub from the Windsor brewer, made some improvements in 1899. However, in February 1903 the borough magistrates and pub owning brewers reached agreement that 12 Wycombe pubs should be closed by 10 October 1903, the Windsor Castle being one. 

The Windsor Castle c1900 with ebullient lamp and ironwork. On the right is Clarke’s solicitors who were to acquire the pub when it closed (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library)

Clarke’s solicitors, who were next door at number 90, acquired their neighbour before the closure date, immediately converting it into offices. Today it seems number 90 Easton Street has simply absorbed the old Windsor Castle, almost growing a skin over it so that it is no longer obvious that it was a separate building. And, sadly, the whole is empty and dilapidated, despite it being a listed building, as are all the surviving pub premises in the street.

The now former Clarke’s solicitor’s offices at 89/90 Easton Street - the old Windsor Castle is the east wing (left side) of the building and barely recognisable

Sources

SWOP (Sharing Wycombe’s Old Photographs)
South Bucks Standard and other local news papers sourced through The British Newspaper Archive
Buckinghamshire Archives for property records and poor rate assessments
Jackie Kay's edition of A Guide to Old Wycombe High Street and Easton Street - Raffety's Chats