YATELEY'S ALEHOUSES

Victorian Alehouses

The boom in beerhouses following the First Beerhouse Act of 1830 tends to overshadow the increased number of fully licensed inns and public houses shortly thereafter. The Licensing Justices encouraged those wishing to open premises to sell beer to apply for a full publican licence. Their rationale was that whereas they had no control over the beerhouses, they could keep full control over alehouses by reviewing their licences annually. The Brewster Sessions, initiated in 1729, were retained by the 1828 Alehouse Act and still take place every February even todayThis was true in 1997, but this annual renewal procedure was abolished when responsibility for alcohol licensing was transferred from Magistrates Courts to Local Authorities under the Licensing Act 2003, with police reports on each publican. In 1992 the law was changed from annual renewals to triennial. The next Brewster Session (following the 1997 Exhibition) for the two Aldershot licensing districts was in February 1998.

In 1830s Yateley there was no immediate fully licensed competition to the Dog & Partridge, the only inn in Yateley village. A series of licence records, held in the Hampshire Record Office deposits from Lamb, Brooks & Bullock, solicitors of Odiham, provide us with names of the licensees to all the inns and alehouses in our licensing division. The four inns in Yateley and Blackwater licensed in the 1790s continued to be the only fully licensed houses until 1855.

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