There were three categories of ‘public house’. First, Inns, which he described as 5 star hotels, and which catered for the gentry, officers, and well-off travellers. They would have had a grand room for reception, bed-rooms and a dormitory for less well-off travellers. Second, Taverns, which mainly existed in towns and cities. Thirdly, Ale Houses, basically private homes where the wife might have brewed the ale and customers would have sat on benches at simple tables, drinking it.A list of brewers and publicans is attached.
East Meon house names include ’Bottle Ale Cottage’ and Bottle Cottage’ as well as ’The Malthouse’. The censuses show ’Maltster’ as an occupation. It was traditional for malt to be made in or near local farms.
There was no coaching route through East Meon, so no Inn as originally defined, but as many as four Ale Houses were available to villagers at any one time. Today there two pubs, ’Ye Olde George Inn’ and the ’Izaak Walton’, originally the New Inn.
Geoff Dye, of Alton, very kindly sent photocopies (attached as PDFs below) of two letters from J.A.Burrell to ’Deacon’ in June and July 1879 concerning negotiations to purchase ’Eastmeon Brewery’ and mentioning furniture in ’the public house’ , i.e. The New Inn, now the Izaak Walton.
Creator
Michael Blakstad Place
East Meon Contributor
Edward Roberts Copyright
n/a Reference number
EM/0088 Accession number
2013-11-018 Storage location
Archive, Resources/Places/Shops and Trades/Pubs Format
Old photos and print
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