This is the first of a two part history of pubs in Wycombe Marsh, focusing on public houses established along the main turnpike road between London and Oxford, now the A40. A second part will look at the area south of the main road.
Wycombe Marsh can, by early Victorian times, be divided into roughly two parts: the Upper Marsh, along the main road from Micklefield Road towards Wycombe, and Lower Marsh along the main road from Micklefield Road towards Loudwater and the built-up area on either side of Abbey Barn Lane.
The socio-economic history of the Marsh revolves around mills. Although there is evidence of corn milling at the Lower Marsh since the 11th century, by 1837 it was a paper mill. Henry Wheeler bought Wycombe Marsh Paper Mill in 1850, by which time the area was industrialising rapidly, with dozens of artisan cottages erected. Another paper mill, Beech Mill, at the junction of Beech Road and Kingsmead Road, operated from 1740 until 1900. Marsh Green Mill (c1742) had ceased operating by 1928, when it was milling corn. Finally, Bowden Mill at Upper Marsh, to the west of the river bridge on Milan Road, closed in 1939.
King George V
Set back from the main road and on the river side of it, the King of Prussia – now the King George V – dates to at least 1757 when William Loosley leased land from John Welch on which he had built an alehouse. Loosley had an alehouse in 1753 called the Hollybush; that name disappeared in 1757 when he had the King of Prussia. Were they the same premises?
In 1771, John Barton of the Lower Marsh leased some land, including Holey Bush Wood [sic]. It’s possible that Loosley’s Hollybush stood adjacent to that wood, and it’s also possible that the alehouse had changed its name after Loosley leased more land in 1757. The extent of the land leased from Welch took Loosley down the river to the boundary of the New Inn, later to become the Halfway House – see Loudwater.
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| The King of Prussia c1900 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press) |
Wycombe brewers Biddle & King were the pub’s lessees in 1793, then their successors Biddle & Wheeler from 1815. The Rev Graves of Bradenham inherited the property in 1854, with Wheeler’s brewery as the lessee. Rev Graves sold the pub to Wheeler’s in 1896. The outbreak of the First World War caused Wheeler’s to change the name to King George V.
William and Mrs Shury took the licence in 1895 and began to make the most of the pub’s riverside location by hosting work outings from west London. Over the next 10 or so years, the Shury’s catered such firms as Harlesden builders Flower & Son, Smily & Shaw (Finsbury Press) and Axby & Drake boatbuilders of Brentford. They came by train and by brake and wagon. After welcome refreshments, games were played: cricket, bagatelle, whist, cribbage, quoits. Dinner was served in the marquee, songs were sung: The Transvaal War, Maggie Maguire, Soldiers of the Queen. Trips were made into Wycombe, men fished or punted on the Wye, or rambled in the hills. Mrs Shury sold fruit, flowers and souvenirs of the town.
Wheeler’s were taken over by Simonds of Reading in 1930, who rebuilt the pub in 1937. After Simonds merged with Courage in 1960, ownership passed through post-1989 pub companies, such as Inntrepreneur, until today when it is owned by Heineken group company, Red Star. It is listed on Buckinghamshire County Council’s Heritage asset list.
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| The King George V c1990 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library) |
Red Lion
The first mention of what was to become the Red Lion, on the west corner of Abbey Barn Road and London Road, is in 1686 when the Bowdery family are in occupation, though there is no mention of the house being a pub. This bears out architectural surveys that show the house, though much altered over the years, to have 17th century origins.
The first licensing record of 1753 shows Charles Hooker as the landlord of the Fox alehouse, which was to become the Red Lion in 1755. Several Wycombe people who had connections to local alehouses are named in the 1755 deeds, such as William Loosley of the King of Prussia, Richard Tomsey (licensee of the Dolphin at Totteridge) and William Gardner.
By 1792, Daniel Squire – another local pub owner – left the pub to his sister, Ann. Biddle & Wheeler, through family connections, had ownership by 1810. Finally, Biddle sold his share to Wheeler in 1854.
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| The ‘old’ Red Lion, on the right, in a postcard of c1900 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press) |
Although the Red Lion was not a coaching inn, there is one deeply sad story that shows it as a coach stop. A Mrs Ball was killed while boarding the Blenheim coach to take her home to Banbury on 24 October 1846. Two days earlier she had come from a funeral of one of her sons in law in Kent to see her sister at the Marsh. The coachman had given the reins to a passenger while he helped Mrs Ball to her seat. The horses drew forward, Mrs Ball fell under the wheels and was crushed.
The Bucks Herald’s report says that fifteen minutes later, a messenger arrived from Maidenhead to tell Mrs Ball that her son Jabez had been killed the previous day after being thrown from his carriage in a collision with another vehicle. The occupants of that other vehicle were charged with manslaughter, while the coachman taking Mrs Ball home was exonerated. However, the inquest jury condemned the practice of passengers having reins put into their hands, ‘more particularly those of females.’
Cock
Across the road from the Red Lion, at the foot of Cock Lane, was the Cock beerhouse. This pub first appears in trade directories in 1853 when it was an unnamed beerhouse and bakery run by John Collier, who had been in the David Robertson-owned house since 1848. The perennial question of which came first, the name of the lane or the pub, doesn’t help us determine when the Cock assumed its name, though it was called the Cock by 1872 when the Lucas brewery leased it from David Robertson’s widow. Sir Philip Rose of Rayners acquired and then rebuilt the pub in 1877, selling it to Wheeler’s in 1903.
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| The Cock after rebuilding in 1877 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library) |
Once the Lucas and Wheeler breweries merged to form Wheeler’s Wycombe Breweries in 1898 they had, as we shall see, almost a monopoly in the village.
The ‘new’ Red Lion
Much was done in the Marsh in the 1930s to sweep away the old buildings that had been a product of industrialisation over the previous century. The Cock beerhouse was a part of this urbanisation. As a consequence of this and of the need to widen the London Road, both the Red Lion and Cock – owned by Simonds of Reading as successors to Wheeler’s – were to be pulled down between 1932 and 1934 and replaced by a new Red Lion on the site of the Cock.
The new pub, designed by Simonds’ architect John Cardwell, bore the subtitle ‘formerly the Cock Inn’.
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| The ‘new’ Red Lion shortly after completion (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library) |
The old Red Lion, consisting of four rooms upstairs and six on the ground floor, was sold at auction for £1550 in February 1934. A piece of land on the other side of Abbey Barn Road where Baines House now stands and which was to be compulsorily purchased for road improvements was included. The old pub became a cafe and is now offices. It was listed Grade II in 1973.
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| The Red Lion in 1990 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library) |
The new Red Lion passed through Courage hands after merger with Simonds to the world of the pub companies after 1989, finally being renamed the Junction before closure and conversion to flats in 2018.
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| The Red Lion as the Junction (courtesy of Movement80 and The Lost Pubs Project) |
Rifle Butts
Charles Rogers was the licensee of the Chequers at Bassetsbury Mill until he moved to a new beerhouse at Little London – also known as Upper Marsh – in 1857.
Rogers had tendered for the property owned by the Wycombe Charity Trustees, who financed the Royal Grammar School (RGS) and various almshouses in Wycombe. He paid the Trustees £15 to secure the bid.
The Rifle Butts that later gave the pub its name was a rifle range opened in October 1877 for the 1st Bucks Volunteers to practice on. It ran the length of Micklefield Road from south of Guinions Road to the ‘butt’, or target, on the north side of Hicks Farm Rise opposite the petrol station.
James Rogers, Charles’ son, took over the Butts from his father and successfully applied for a full licence in 1897, when Wheeler’s brewery leased the pub. James argued that he, and his father before him, had made many applications for such a licence and he had a petition from locals wanting to buy spirits to support his application.
In 1904, the Wycombe Charity Trustees gave up their control of the RGS to the Board of Education, and asked the Charity Commissioners for permission to sell the Butts, although the sale to Wheeler’s didn’t take place until 1913.
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| The Rifle Butts in 1990 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library) |
Like the rest of Wheeler’s estate the Rifle Butts passed to Simonds brewery in 1930, then through Courage and pubcos until it closed in 2023. Its future looks far from certain at the time of writing.
Sources
SNOXELL, David 2005, Old Mill Cottage and Marsh Green Mill, High Wycombe Society Spring 2005 newsletter
FARLEY, Michael 1982, Buckinghamshire Watermills, vol 24 Records of Buckinghamshire, Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society
BROWN, Mike 2007, ABC: A Brewers’ Compendium: A Directory Of Buckinghamshire Brewers, Brewery History Society: Longfield
Buckinghamshire archives for property and licensing records
HM Land Registry
Companies House
Simonds Family Website (Raymond Simonds)
Bucks Herald and other local newspapers accessed through the British Newspaper Archive
Trade directories for Buckinghamshire accessed through the University of Leicester's Special Collections Online
Bucks County Council Heritage Portal
