HOME BREWERS & INNKEEPERS

Brookfield House

"The house was originally a pub called the Wheatsheaf‘ and was erected in about 1760....", according to the estate agent details. However, once we moved in it was obvious that the house had much older origins. Had it been built as a pub? We did find in the garage a 'bum-rest' - a fire guard with a padded top that fitted the "large ingle-nook fireplace", and we were told over the garden fence that people came with jugs to buy beer here. One older resident thought he could remember coming into the house from the side, where there is now a window. He said there were several steps down. The brickwork shows signs of alteration and in a cupboard under the staircase in that area we discovered a brick floor at a lower depth. There is a solid floor in the rest of the room now. Was this the entrance used if you wanted your jug filled?

Later research revealed that it was around 1861 that the property was a beer house known as the Wheatsheaf. It was in the ownership of the Kelsey family, but occupied then by Henry Blake and his family, relations of Mrs Kelsey. By the 1871 census the Blakes seem to have left Yateley and there is no further mention of the Wheatsheaf. Going further back in time, from 1719 to 1834, the house belonged to wheelwrights called Millard and then their kinsmen, Richard and James Miles. There were Millards in Yateley in the 16th century and the inventory for a house belonging to Robert Milward in 1581 includes a brewing tub and a malt quern and John Millard in 1641 left a malt quern to his son, but as yet we do not know if they lived here. We used to brew beer, but not since we have moved to Brookfield . Perhaps we should revive the practice?

Norma Dowling, May 1997

Back to 1997 Exhibition: Inns, Alehouses & Maltsters of Yateley

NEXT page in 1997 Exhibition

Original page written by Norma Dowling for the Yateley Society's 1997 Exhibition: Inns, Alehouses & Maltsters

Additional research by Richard Johnston, Elizabeth & Peter Tipton

Original page may now have been revised to include the Society's latest Research

(c) The Yateley Society, 1997 & 2008

Page Exhib.1997.27