A pub walk through Flackwell Heath

This post is an expanded and updated version of an article that first appeared in the Bucks Free Press on 9 August 2024. It was updated on 2 April 2025 to include some information about the Rose & Crown at Sheepridge.

The Magpie in 1993 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library)

Flackwell Heath village is now a combination of the four hamlets of Heath End, Flackwell Heath, Sedgmore and Northern (or Northend) Woods. I have included Sheepridge with these four in order to include another pub.

We’ll start our walk at the top of Spring Lane by the College where the Leather (or Leathern) Bottle alehouse is believed to have stood on the south side of Heath End Road. Licensed from 1756, and described as part-thatched, it was a Wethered’s house by 1816. Although the alehouse had disappeared from licensing records by 1818, it was a beerhouse owned by John Sarney in November 1830. The Beerhouse Act had only come into force on 10 October 1830, so it’s likely that Sarney, who was in his mid-50s and owned several acres of land, had lived in the property for some while.

Sarney and his beerhouse gained notoriety owing to their involvement in the Swing Riots of 1830. The ‘rioters’ were largely agricultural workers whose jobs and wages were affected by new threshing machines. Their aim was to break the machines or persuade farmers not to use them. But in Wycombe the focus was on paper making machinery that was having a similar effect on manual workers’ employment. It was alleged the rioters had met at Sarney’s beerhouse and that he had encouraged as well as joined in the machine breaking.

Sarney was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death, later commuted to transportation for life. He stayed aboard a prison hulk until pardoned, returning to Flackwell Heath in 1836 where he continued running his beerhouse. The last mention of him is in the Bucks Advertiser of 19 October 1839. A piece entitled A Curious Circumstance, which drips with indignation, summarised his arrest, trial, his life since release and a recent court case after ‘Sarney [had] about a peck of his potatoes stolen; for this he caused two men to be apprehended and the thieves were convicted at our sessions [magistrates’ court], Sarney actually appearing in the witness box against them as the owner of the property stolen!’ The men in question were found guilty, sentenced to six months’ hard labour, with the final week of each month spent in solitary confinement.

Sarney died in 1840 and there is no mention of the beerhouse after this. The site of the pub is thought to be where Leathern House stands today.

Further along Heath End Road is the Stag. The first record we have of this pub is in the 1851 census when William Pim is shown as a victualler and carpenter, though the pub is unnamed. By 1872 William Smith – a papermaker and beer seller – was the licensee of what had become the White Hart beerhouse owned by Thomas Williams’ Royal Stag Brewery. Williams may only have recently acquired the house as Smith left in 1873 by which time the name was the Stag, probably after the brewery. 

The Stag in the early 1920s. This beerhouse, like the Magpie, seems to have been a combination of two cottages (courtesy of the Flackwell Local Area History Group and Bob Kin)

In 1947 Wethered’s brewery (who had acquired Williams in 1927) were keen to rebuild the pub on a different site in view of the housing development in Heath End. However, they instead decided to extend the existing building. The Stag got its full licence in 1961. 

The Stag in 1993 showing the rather ugly extensions to the original beerhouse illustrated in the picture above (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library)

The Stag has passed through a number of pub company (pubco) operators’ hands since the demise of Wethered as a brewer in 1988, and then its parent, Whitbread, as a pub operator in 2001. Today it is owned by Stonegate, Britain’s largest pubco. However, the Stag is locally valued and is therefore listed as an Asset of Community Value (ACV).

A couple of hundred yards away towards the village centre was the Magpie. The earliest record of this pub is in the poor rate assessments of 1838. The poor rate records for 1846 show it had become two cottages combined to make an unnamed beerhouse owned by William Bowles. Artisan dwellings were very small and the combination of two or more was often necessary to make a pub that could also be the licensee’s home, and perhaps provide some room for a shop.

The Magpie when in Lucas ownership (pre-1898). The second cottage making up the beerhouse is probably to the rear as it is at the Stag. Note the print is the wrong way round (mirrored left to right), the village centre being to the right (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press)

Thomas Smith had run the beerhouse since 1856 when it may have been called the Golden Cup. By 1867 it had the Magpie name when it was granted a full licence to sell wine and spirits. Thomas Lucas’ Frogmoor brewery was the owner in 1872. Lucas’ brewery merged with Wheeler’s of Easton Street in 1898 to form Wheeler’s Wycombe Breweries.

The Magpie c1910 when in Wheeler’s Wycombe Breweries ownership. The smart gentleman is probably the landlord showing off his house (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library)

By 1911 the pub consisted of a taproom, parlour, bar (with a beer engine), kitchen, four bedrooms, large garden, two orchards, ‘rough’ stabling and piggeries. It was on offer to a new tenant who could expect to pay an annual rent to Wheeler’s of £18, £11 10s (£11.50p) for a licence and £5 for rates. There was also a fee to pay, sometimes called an ingoing valuation, to cover such items as fixtures and fittings owned by the incumbent tenant, and stock. When the tenant left the pub the valuation would be recalculated and charged to the next incoming tenant. In this case the valuation was £110 – a considerable sum. In March 1912 the outgoing tenant was George Willoughby who had taken over from George Keats on a temporary basis in December 1910. The incoming tenant was Charles Millman.

Wheeler’s Wycombe Breweries was bought by Simonds of Reading in 1930, who then merged with Courage in 1960. The Magpie was sold to Morland’s of Abingdon in 1993 and closed in 2006 to be demolished two years later for housing.

The Magpie in Morland’s ownership in 1994. Note that the old Courage sign has been taken down (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library)

Across the road from the Magpie pub is Magpie Cottage. An elderly villager tells of his grandfather drinking there when it was a beerhouse known as the Dashwood Arms. The Bucks Advertiser reported a court case on 22 July 1871. The report tells us that John Howard had been at the beerhouse since 1839. He signed an agreement with Weller’s brewery of Amersham to take the house for an annual rent of £10. After Howard died various members of his family took it on until by time the court sat the tenant was his daughter Amelia. As far as she was concerned she owned the pub, which, in any case, was no longer licensed. As far as Weller’s were concerned she was a squatter. Also Weller’s had had a mortgage on the property since 1850, the interest and capital on which was paid up to date.

The former Dashwood Arms, now Magpie Cottage (courtesy of the Flackwell Local Area History Group and the Baker family)

Amelia said she had known nothing about a mortgage, rent or an agreement between her father and the brewery until November 1869. In court Weller’s produced the tenancy agreement with John Howard’s mark upon it. The judge directed the jury to find for Weller’s and evict the Howard family. Once a beerhouse licence had lapsed after 1869 there was no possibility of the magistrates granting a new one. Weller’s still owned the unlicensed house in 1874.

If we turn right down Sheepridge Lane we will shortly come to the Crooked Billet. The first record of this beerhouse is in the 1841 census when John Smith is the publican. His widow, Maria, was both the landlady and owner by 1872, though the pub was leased to Wethered’s.

The Crooked Billet c2000 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library)

During the first decades of the 20th century it seemed to be in a permanent financial crisis with a high turnover of tenants. Wethered’s made regular loans, which culminated in it being mortgaged and then purchased by them in 1919. 

It’s possible that such financial difficulties caused landlord William Squelch to get into trouble on 19 November 1905. Sunday opening hours had been restricted since 1618 when alehouses had to close during morning worship. By 1905 pubs could not open before 12.30pm and then had to close in the afternoon. A way of getting round the limitations imposed on pubs and their customers by the Sunday licensing laws was to claim one was a bona fide traveller. The problem was that statutes never clarified who or what was a bona fide traveller – that task was left to the courts. It seemed the term might have applied to anyone who had travelled more than three miles by time they arrived at the pub, though some judges dismissed that interpretation. It also seemed to exclude those travelling specifically to have a drink, though other judges dismissed that interpretation too. The bona fide traveller became a source of mockery and satire. 

In Mr Squelch’s case, PC Young had found 19 men drinking in his pub at 11.15am, according to a report of the magistrates’ hearing in the South Bucks Standard of 15 December 1905. Squelch said all were travellers. PC Young took names and addresses and, in his view, they all came from within ‘the three-mile radius from the Crooked Billett [sic]’. Three witnesses, who had been drinking in the pub that morning, gave evidence on Squelch’s behalf, and all disagreed with PC Young’s calculations. The bench, thinking there was doubt about the offence, dismissed it though awarded costs of 15 shillings against Squelch. Finally, ‘they recommended that all publicans should make themselves acquainted with the three-mile radius.’ Squelch left the pub the following March, after just over two years as landlord.

The law changed in 1921 when the concept of the bona fide traveller was removed from statute, though calls to bring it back continued until restrictions on afternoon drinking were loosened in the 1980s.

It’s worth comparing the situation of the Magpie with that of the Crooked Billet around 1910. The Magpie seems to have been a successful, fully licensed public house, while the Crooked Billet was a beerhouse that struggled to retain its tenants. In March 1912, when it was transferred to Arthur Bristow who became the sixth licensee in 10 years, it comprised a taproom, parlour, cellar, kitchen, four bedrooms, garden and stabling for two horses. For this the tenant would need only £7 for the first year’s rent (£12 a year subsequently), £3 4s (£3.20) for rates and a beerhouse licence costing £5 5s 3d (£5.27). There would also be an ingoing valuation cost, but, in the pub broker’s records this figure is blank – a matter for negotiation perhaps.

The Crooked Billet was granted a full licence in 1960 and is now in private hands as well as being listed as an ACV. The attractive setting in particular is a draw – it’s no wonder that travellers, bona fide or not, were keen to spend time there.

The Crooked Billet in 2015 (courtesy of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA))

Before we move on, there is evidence of another pub at Sheepridge before the Crooked Billet. The Rose & Crown, or Crown, first appears in licensing records in 1753, though it may have been licensed earlier. This alehouse was leased by Wycombe brewers Rotton, Allnut & Kingston in 1795 and then by Kingston, Allnut & Co in 1806. It last appears in the licensing records in 1818 when Joseph Wilsden is the licensee. 

The theft of some crops from Pigeon House Farm in September 1818 seems to have led to the pub’s closure. The thief and Joseph Wilsden’s wife, Ann, were tried in Marlow. Ann was convicted of receiving stolen goods and sentenced to six months’ in prison. Although the 1819 poor rate records show Joseph still at Sheepridge, he had gone by the following year. The licensing magistrates had clearly not renewed his licence and the brewery probably decided, as the post-Napoleonic war economy was in poor shape, not to seek another tenant.

There are no further clues as to the pub’s precise location, though there are one or two very old buildings at Sheepridge that must be candidates for the site.

Returning to the village centre, and beginning to walk along Straight Bit, we would have found the Green Man. This was an historic alehouse first licensed in 1755 when Henry Blackwell was the landlord. A Wethered pub from at least 1816 it closed in 2011 and was demolished; Sainsbury’s now occupies the site.

The Green Man – probably late 1930s – with a pictorial sign that Wethered’s pubs did not generally have until after World War Two (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press)

The Green Man in the early 1970s with Whitbread signage that has little of Wethered’s character when compared with the 1930s picture above (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press)

Not far from the Green Man, on the other side of Straight Bit, is the Cherry Tree. Poor rate records show this beerhouse was first licensed in 1846 when William Collins was the owner and William Ridgeley the licensee. Wheeler’s bought it in 1847. It got its full licence in 1956, just before Simonds brewery sold it into private hands. It changed its name to Heath’s Wine Bar from 1984 to 1993 when it became the Cherry Tree again. It is listed as an ACV.

A motley crew outside the Cherry Tree welcome home troops from South Africa who had fought in the Boer War of 1901 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press)

The Cherry Tree today (courtesy of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA))

Turning left to the Common takes us to an historic alehouse, the Three Horseshoes. Known as the Chequer in 1753 (the first year licensing records were kept) the licensee was Richard Wright. John Stratford took over from Wright in 1789 and changed the name to Three Horseshoes two years later – perhaps Stratford was a blacksmith – as the name Chequer or Chequers usually denoted a pub where business could be done. 

Somewhere on the north side of the village was another alehouse called the Chequers. This appears in licensing records only between 1793 and 1814. It is shown in a Wethered brewery insurance policy of 1801 valued at £50, the lowest value of the nine pubs the brewery owned at the time. This gives some indication that it was a small house despite brewer Thomas Wethered himself being the licensee in 1795.

Nicknamed the Tips, the Three Horseshoes seems to be a combination of a number of buildings such that it’s not clear if any of the 18th century original still exists. The poor rate records for 1864 show Wethered owning the pub and two cottages next door to one another. It may have been then that the pub took on its present footprint. Now owned by Stonegate, it reopened in December 2024 after a short period of closure.

The Three Horseshoes in 1993. Then in Whitbread livery after the demise of Wethered’s brewery (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library)

We now have a three quarters of a mile walk to get to the Green Dragon on Blind Lane. This is another historic village alehouse, though the building on the corner of Green Dragon Lane and Blind Lane is not the original. We need to take a short detour further along Green Dragon Lane to find the original site that is now The Old Green Dragon Cottage. The earliest record of this alehouse is in 1755 when it was called the Cross Keys with John Dwitzer as the licensee. By 1767 it had become the Green Dragon. 

In September 1912, when the pub was transferred from William Carter to Walter Smith, the pub consisted of a bar, parlour, taproom, kitchen, three bedrooms, bathroom – almost unheard of at this time – yard, stables, large garden, good piggeries and ‘fowl runs’. It’s described in the pub broker’s records as ‘a comfortable home’ at an annual rent of £10 10s (£10.50), £6 6s (£6.30) of which relates to an adjoining cottage. The valuation payment is a hefty £200, though that sum includes a ‘good spring cart’. There had only been one change of tenant in 20 years. 

The original Green Dragon in the 1920s (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library)

The Green Dragon was a Wethered house. The brewery bought the two cottages where the current building now stands in 1935, converting them into the new pub in 1937 at a total cost of £4438. The old Green Dragon was retained as a let property until Wethered decided to repair and sell it in 1941. This plan came to a halt in 1942 when it was requisitioned by Wycombe Rural District Council on behalf of the government. Wethered’s didn’t get the cottage back until 1948 when they began to let it again. It was sold in 1972, the same year that the ‘new’ pub became a managed house.

The ‘new’ Green Dragon in 1971 (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press)

Like other ex-Wethered pubs in the village, the Green Dragon is now owned by Stonegate.

Sources and acknowledgements 

Documents, papers and books

Buckinghamshire archives, particularly for licensing, property and brewery records, and the records of A Horley & Sons, pub brokers of Maidenhead.

DELL, Alan 2006, Buckinghamshire and the Swing Riots, vol 46 Records of Buckinghamshire, Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society

BROWN, Mike 2007, ABC: A Brewers’ Compendium: A Directory Of Buckinghamshire Brewers, Brewery History Society: Longfield

Websites

UK census records held on Ancestry.co.uk

CAMRA - The Campaign for Real Ale

Companies House and HM Land Registry, both accessed through GOV.UK

Stonegate Group

A special thanks to Sally Scagell of the Flackwell Local Area History Group for her help locating the former Dashwood Arms, the site of the Leather Bottle and for facilitating access to photographs of the former.