YATELEY'S ALEHOUSES
The Greyhound
The Greyhound was the third public house to acquire a full licence, Thomas Bartlett at the Anchor beat the Greyhound by a year. However there is proof in the Manorial Court books that the Greyhound was an 1830 beerhouse before it gained its full licence in 1860. The first mention of the name is in 1843, when William Sams "late of Yateley beer retailer" is admitted to All that brick and thatched messuage or tenement with the outbuildings garden and appurtenances thereto belonging situate at Darby Green in the sd Parish of Yateley now used as a retail Beer House bearing the sound sic of the Greyhound and in the occupation of the said William Sams being the premises constituting lot 3 at the aforesaid auction and the same as are delineated in the sd first recited copy of CR as 1 ancient Messuage with the appurtenances thereunto belonging. William Sams purchased the beerhouse for £244 at the auction of the estate of Thomas Dash, then in bankruptcy. Dash was an innkeeper of New Windsor who had also owned Darby Green Farm.
The Sams were another family of licensed victuallers; one of the sons gave his address as the Canton Arms, South Lambeth, Surrey. Eventually the original thatched Greyhound was replaced by a new building and the Sams too ran into money problems.
Richard Kelsey was the next owner of note of the Greyhound. In the deposits of Lamb, Brooks, his solicitors, there is an interesting correspondence concerning the Greyhound. There is a lease dated March 1902 of the Greyhound to John Headington, brewer, trading as Headington and Son, Wellington Brewery, Wokingham. This lease was for 21 years but with 7 or 14 year terms on 6 months' notice with rent £25 annually. Times were hard before the 1st World War for brewers and public house owners alike. On 21 Dec 1912 Kelsey had asked Lamb, Brooks to send him the lease agreed with Headington, and returned it with the following comment:
with regard to the Greyhound & it appears he has almost 4 years to run. I see by his letter that he says he cannot pay any more rent till the trade increases & I do not think it is likely to improve at this time of year. A new house and a new tenant shd help the house a good deal, but the present tenant is not what her shd be -- the Beer is not so good as it ought to be either, that is not improving things much. J.A.W. Headington advertised, or made it known he wanted another tenant no doubt he wd soon be able to get one. I do not think he is likely to give up the house, as he stands a chance of losing one or two others & he has not many. I think we had better leave it till next summer & see what the trade is then. It may improve and then we must ask for more rent. Yours etc
Memo no 326 from J. Headington which provoked Richard Kelsey's observations:
The licence used to be £12-0-0 and now they have put it up to £15, the compensation is increased from £4 to £6. We only charge the tenant £12 for rent, pay all his licence above £11, therefore before we make anything for ourselves we have to get back
rent................25-0-0
compensation..6-0-0
licence..............4-0-0
....affairs.........45-0-0
All this is a familiar commercial story, but we wonder where the other ten pounds in the sum went to!
Back to 1997 Exhibition: Inns, Alehouses & Maltsters of Yateley
Original page written by P J Tipton for the Yateley Society's 1997 Exhibition: Inns, Alehouses & Maltsters
Additional research by Richard Johnston & Elizabeth Tipton
Original page may now have been revised to include the Society's latest Research
(c) The Yateley Society, 1997 & 2008
Page Exhib.1997.20
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