Pubs of Newland part three – 1940 to the present

 

The map is not to scale and does not show all roads. A walk today from one side of the area to the other would take little more than 10 minutes.

Pubs are numbered in the text as follows, while those closed before 1940 are indicated by italics:           1 Wheel    2 Elephant & Castle    3 Spread Eagle    4 Jolly Butcher    5 Mason’s Arms    6 Gate         7 Black Swan    8 Golden Fleece    9 Barley Mow    10 Chair Van        11 Rose & Crown     12 Peacock           13 Royal Oak       14 Roundabout (original site)    15 Plough    16 Rose    17 World’s End    18 Victoria    19 Roundabout (new site)

For the history of Newland’s pubs up to 1940 see Pubs of Newland part one – the beginning to 1872 and Pubs of Newland part two – 1872 to 1940.

By the time war broke out the older parts of Newland had been demolished under slum clearance orders and furniture factories were filling the spaces once occupied by artisan cottages and workshops.

The fall in the population had led to the majority of Newland’s pubs being closed, while brewery companies were keen to get some existing licences moved to the growing Wycombe suburbs.

Keenest of the brewers seems to have been Benskins who had tried to move the licence of the Golden Fleece (8) to Sands in the 1930s after they were refused permission to rebuild their pub on Desborough Road. In 1953 Benskins applied once more to move the licence, this time a matter of yards to the junction of Rutland Street and Desborough Road. The site of the existing pub was needed to extend the gas works. North Thames Gas could have compulsorily purchased the pub; instead, they offered the corner site nearby. The new pub would have been 50% bigger than the old. The application was refused as magistrates disapproved of rebuilt pubs with increased drinking space.

Benskins then applied to move the Golden Fleece to the top of Hatters Lane in 1955 where 350 houses had already been built and more were to follow. This time they were successful. At the same licensing meeting Benskins applied to move the Gate to a new site adjacent to the existing pub and was successful in that application too.

The derelict former Golden Fleece awaiting demolition in 1971, as does Newland Cottage on its right (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press)

While the new Golden Fleece did not open until late 1959 the new Gate (6) was ready for business in double-quick time, opening in 1956. However, this was a temporary structure erected behind the existing pub that was demolished once the new pub was complete.

The rear of the rebuilt Gate of 1956 taken from the Newland multi-storey car park in 1974. The temporary pub would have been where the garage stands (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press)

The licence of the Masons Arms (5) was not renewed in 1956 and the pub was closed at the end of the year, compensation being paid to Simonds brewery (£1500) and their tenant, Anthony Castleman (£175).

The Mason’s Arms after a collision with an armoured car in 1954. The 83-year-old father of the pub’s licensee escaped injury after deciding to take the sun in the pub garden a short time before the crash, while the driver was on his first training run (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press)

A full licence and a plan

The Rose (16), supported by a petition signed by 300 of its customers, was granted a full licence to sell spirits in 1961. Strangely, a 1949 application for a wine licence – also supported by a 300-person petition – was unsuccessful.

The Royal Oak (13) and Gate received less welcome news in 1961. They were to be compulsorily purchased and demolished to make way for radical changes set out in High Wycombe’s redevelopment plan, which would include an inner relief road. The plan was modified in 1964 but the threats remained. 

Negotiations about the Royal Oak between Wethered’s brewery and the Borough Council continued for another four years. By 1966 it was clear that the pub would have to go, the matters to be decided were: what was the sum to be offered to buy the building and where could the pub’s licence be moved to?

One option explored was to demolish the Royal Oak and replace it with a new off-licence on an adjacent site, while another was to find a site for a new pub in one of the new Wycombe estates. In the meantime, the tenant licensee could not make a living and was replaced by a manager. 

In 1968 negotiations were completed. The council gave Wethered’s a 99-year lease on land in Castlefield to build the Jolly Bodger that opened in 1969, and the Royal Oak disappeared.

The Royal Oak shortly before closure (courtesy of Stuart King)

Although the Gate largely escaped the destruction wreaked by the Wycombe development plan it found itself stuck next to the now-unmissed Octagon bus station. But then when the bus station, too, was threatened with redevelopment the Gate was compulsorily purchased in 2003, closing the following year and disappearing like the Royal Oak. It had, in the meantime, seen its ownership change from Benskins to Ind Coope (1957), to Allied Breweries (1961), and to Punch Taverns (1999).  

The new Gate in 1991, dwarfed by the Octagon bus station (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by High Wycombe Library)

Now the Gate lies under the Eden Centre, while the Royal Oak is under the Eden bus station.

Two closures and a survivor

The Rose, sitting in an increasing waste land of car parks and industry waiting to close, fell on troubled times in the 1980s; it was raided by police looking for drug dealing in 1988. A burglary followed and further drug raids in 1990. Whitbread were by then the owners, having taken over the pub from their subsidiary, Wethered’s. They closed the pub and sold it at a 1991 auction, as part of a larger lot. Altogether, Whitbread disposed of 2,300 of their pubs by 1992 in order to comply with the 1989 Beer Orders that required each brewer to own no more than 2,000 pubs.

The Rose in 1972, semi-detached with Stuart & Arnold’s chocolate factory to the left (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press)

The Rose did not reopen, instead becoming offices. Later, Denmark Street ceased to exist in all but name, becoming a part of the Eden Centre.

The Roundabout (19) fared better. Like the Royal Oak, its tenant was replaced by a manager in the mid-1950s. Simonds brewery then merged with Courage in 1960. The Roundabout was sold to Charles Farrow in 1976, making it a genuine free house free of a brewery tie. It had become a popular music venue during the 1980s and its popularity must have attracted the big pub companies again as by 1990 it had been acquired by Grand Metropolitan subsidiary, Watney Truman.

Children pose outside the Roundabout on 13 June 1953, where licensees Mr and Mrs Moore provided a coronation tea and entertainment. Mrs and Councillor Picton are standing second and third from the left – Picton’s Stores stood on the site of the old Roundabout (courtesy of SWOP, copyright managed by Bucks Free Press)

Wychwood Brewery of Witney were the owners in 1995 as Grand Metropolitan divested itself of thousands of pubs it had acquired since the 1970s. The Roundabout, having changed its name to the Phoenix Bar, closed in May 2025 after failing to renew its lease. The building stands unused at the time of writing.

The Roundabout as the Phoenix (courtesy of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA)) 

The Rose & Crown (11) since 1940 presents a picture of a typical town pub. Among other things it has acted as the HQ of a racing pigeon club – the West End Homing Society – run bar billiards and darts teams, been home to a brass band and a Buffaloes lodge, the Chiltern Jazz Club and trades unions. 

The Mendy Street side of the Rose & Crown after a 2024 repaint (courtesy of the Rose & Crown Facebook)

Since Wheeler’s brewery was acquired by Simonds in 1930 ownership has followed the usual pattern for such pubs: Courage from 1960, and then a series of pub companies from 1991 such as Inntrepreneur, Enterprise, EiGroup and Stonegate. It still runs darts teams and is a venue for live music. A Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) stalwart, the Rose & Crown is the only pub surviving in Newland.

Sources

Licensing, rating and property records held at The Buckinghamshire Archives.

SWOP (Sharing Wycombe’s Old Photographs).

The Bucks Free Press archive.

Ordnance Survey maps held at Wycombe Library and online at the National Library of Scotland.

Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) website https://camra.org.uk/ 

Rose & Crown Facebook page  

ROE, David (editor) 1995, Real Ale In Bucks, CAMRA books: St Albans.