Drybrook Inn - around 1850 (General)

by Derek Bond , Cheltenham, Monday, February 01, 2021, 16:45 (1177 days ago) @ Mike Pinchin

Thanks for the information. I too have been searching newspaper archives around the time when my third great grandfather George Taylor and his wife Elizabeth (nee Predeth) were landlord and landlady.
In 1847 William Lerigo appears to be the landlord but financial difficulties meant he had to assign his estate to Charles Weaver of Lydbrookin trust for himself and his creditors.
In 1848 an article talks about a road leading from the Drybrook Inn to a place called the Dam and thence to Ruardean, which belonged to Charles Matthew, a butcher, and was in a poor state of repair.
By 1851 George Taylor was the landlord. The inn served as a location for various auctions, of which one in 1854 stated that George Taylor would be showing the premises, being pasture, orchards, and woods at Oxlet in the parish of Walford.
In 1858 George was charged with having in his possession, four quart and eight-pint measures, deficient in quantity, for which he was fined £5 and expenses. In the same report Sophia Taylor, cider-house keeper, Walford, was charged with having three pints and one half-pint deficient in measure – fined £2 and 10s expenses. I am not sure if she was related to her. The inn had a club-room which was used by the Walford Union Friendly Society.
There are reports of its anniversaries in 1858 and 1866 where up to 150 members attended. In 1858 "The dinner was served up in Mr. and Mrs. Taylor’s usual style and gave great satisfaction. We need hardly say that the appetites of the members were much improved by the walk to church and back, which was evinced by the rapid disappearance of sundry well-cooked joints. After the removal of the cloth, numerous toasts were proposed and the evening spent in the usual manner".
In 1859 an article mentions a case of pig stealing against John Ball, butcher, English Bicknor and John Cooper and George Fox, shopkeepers, Gayford, held in the Magistrates room Coleford. James Griffith, a collier, once owned the pigs and he gained intelligence at Cat’s-hill turnpike-gate that they were missing. He went on to Mr. Taylor’s at Drybrook, near Kerne bridge, where he got further information from Mr. Taylor. Ann, wife of Richard Taylor, said: I live with my father-in-law at Drybrook, near Kerne bridge; he keeps a public-house called the Drybrook inn; on Thursday, 22nd September I went to see Temperance Dew, my sister-in-law, who lives about half a mile nearer Kerne bridge. Martha Powell said: I live as servant at the Drybrook inn; yesterday week I went to Mrs. Temperance Dew’s, and on returning I met Mrs. Taylor going up.
In 1867 there was a case of drunkenness against John Taylor, hawker, with being drunk and riotous at Walford. Police-constable Phillips had been called into the Drybrook Inn, where the defendant and another were fighting. Defendant was very drunk and quarrelsome. Apparently one witness Alfred Taylor deposed that he wrote the letter put in by the defendant at the former hearing; he wrote the letter by the direction of Mr Taylor, the landlord of the Drybrook Inn, who could not write himself…he had only written what Mr Taylor dictated.
In 1868 the license of the Drybrook Inn, Walford was transferred from George Taylor to John Hatton.
In 1859 Richard Wyson was charged with being drunk and refusing to leave a beerhouse during a club meeting when requested to do so by the landlord. The magistrate said, “It was a great pity that clubs of this description were held at public-houses, for when people got there, the drink flowed about like water, and thus the clubs were abused, and their members got themselves into a scrape”.
I think the writing was on the wall now because in 1873 Mr. W Sillett of Goodrich, applied for a spirit and ale license to be transferred or removed from a house at Drybrook called the Drybrook Inn, in the parish of Walford, to a house near the Kerne Bridge station of the Ross and Monmouth Railway”. There was opposition by Edward Jones of the Albion Inn, Walford because the alehouse was very close to his, however as Mr. Partridge had taken down a licensed beerhouse close by, called the Kerne Inn, the magistrate decided there would not be additional competition and granted the application.