This post was updated on 18 February 2025 to provide the history of the De Spencers before 1835.
At the top of Downley Common, where the paved Plomer Green Lane becomes an unmade road before becoming a footpath into the woods towards Naphill Common, is Le De Spencers Arms.
The alehouse is described in an auction notice in the South Bucks Herald of 8 August 1835 as ‘A well built brick and slated Public House, known as Lord Le De Spencer's Arms, with good out offices, and about 3 acres of meadow land, situate at Naphill Common, in the parish of West Wycombe, now let to Mr. Jesse Bristow, at the rent of £25 per year.’
This is an auction of Thomas Joynson’s property on his bankruptcy. Joynson had been a horse owner until 1830, supplying horses for the Tetsworth to West Wycombe stage of the daytime Oxonian coach. In May 1832 he was trading as a lacedealer and coach master at West Wycombe when he was made bankrupt.
It’s likely that Joynson opened the pub as the Wellington Arms in 1822, changing the name to Lord Le De Spencer's Arms the following year with John Hawes as the tenant. There was another pub with this name in West Wycombe until it closed in 1815 – its story is here.
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| The De Spencers in 1950 with licensee Stan Brown (courtesy of the Downley Local History Group) |
Wethered’s bought the pub – brewery records first mention their ownership of the De Spencers in 1836. The poor rate records from 1840 show the pub to also have a shop, bakehouse and garden.
The Bristows were licensees until late in the 19th century, though it never seemed to be a pub Wethered’s were keen to retain. They tried to sell it at auction in 1895 and again in 1900, both times withdrawing the lot when it failed to make the reserve. They sold off most of the meadow after that. In 1944, the brewery considered removing the licence to a new site at Downley Pitch – see Downley Donkey below.
The De Spencers enjoyed a quiet existence until Wethered’s brewery closed in 1988 and then its parent company, Whitbread, sold the pub to Fuller’s of Chiswick in 1990.
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| The De Spencers, now a Fuller’s pub, in 1993 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library) |
In the 1930s many breweries were keen to improve their tied estate, including rebuilding many of their older pubs. Wethered’s were particularly keen to improve their estate in High Wycombe and move the licences of older pubs within the town to new housing estates that began to emerge after World War One. This strategy involved agreeing with the licensing magistrates to surrender usually two old licences for every new successful application. It also involved buying land on which to build new, improved pubs.
Wethered’s bought a plot of land at Downley Pitch – at the junction of Plomer Green Lane and Littleworth Road – in 1937 where an estate of houses, known as the Spriggs Estate, were to be built. The magistrates refused an application for a licence at this site and continued to refuse a licence until the outbreak of World War Two put further applications on hold.
As already mentioned, Wethered’s began to consider taking the licence of the De Spencers to Downley Pitch in 1944. Then in 1945 they were offered the house adjoining their plot for £3,000. Though they initially refused the offer they changed their mind and made the purchase.
What is contained in newspaper reports of the licensing magistrates’ meetings and what the Wethered board minutes say about licence applications often disagree. On the one hand, in 1947 the magistrates are reported as rejecting the removal of the De Spencers because there were local objections to the scheme, and there is too much post-war uncertainty about pub licensing. On the other hand, the Wethered board report that the magistrates wanted the company to surrender two of either the Beech Tree at Knaves Beech, the Bricklayers’ Arms (later the Derehams Inn) at Loudwater and Crooked Billet at Sheepridge. Wethered countered they would surrender the Beech Tree if they could rebuild the Bricklayers’. Application refused.
After this, Wethered’s lost interest in the new pub at Downley Pitch, despite plans being drawn up and then amended by their architect, Brocklehurst.
The next mention of the scheme is not until 1952, when board minutes affirm the company’s intention not to surrender the licence of the Rose Bush in Tylers Green for one in Downley, though there’s no evidence of any applications being made to the magistrates at this time.
The scheme was revived 10 years later in 1962, but after a further rejection Wethered’s decided to sell their plot for housing in 1963, which application was also refused by the County Council and by the Minister of Housing. In 1964, the company swapped their original plot for one on the other side of the road. And in 1967, after agreeing to surrender the licence of the Beech Tree at Knaves Beech, they were successful in getting a licence for a pub at the Pitch.
The Downley Donkey opened in 1969. Named after local character Dickie Gray, who stabled his donkeys in Moor Lane in the early 20th century. After Wethered's closed, their parent company, Whitbread, sold their estate – the Laurel Pub Company – to Enterprise Inns in 2002. The pub was closed in 2014 to be converted to a convenience store.
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| The Downley Donkey (courtesy of the Downley Local History Group) |
Despite Wethered spending over 50 years trying, or thinking about, offloading the Lord Le De Spencer's Arms, and 30 years trying to get a licence for a pub at Downley Pitch, it’s the De Spencers that survives and thrives today.
Sources
Bucks Free Press and other local papers accessed through the British Newspaper Archive
SWOP (Sharing Wycombe’s Old Photographs)
Buckinghamshire Archives for poor rate assessments
Fuller, Smith & Turner PLC
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