White Lion

The right hand part of the ground floor of the present White Lion used to be a shop. It sold toys and sweets around 1900, and horses and carriages could be hired there. By the 1930s it was Cooper’s Stores. Cooper’s, whose customers were mainly the villagers, as opposed to Tice’s beside the church who took the "carriage trade", lasted until the fast increasing population in the 1960s brought a supermarket to the opposite side of the road.

The origins of this shop go back before 1700, so it was probably the oldest shop in Yateley. Thomas Bunch, the blacksmith at Trythes (see Forge Court, inherited the shop in 1770 and became the first person in Yateley records to be described as shopkeeper.

James Rogers inherited the property in 1842. He continued to run the shop but licensed the left hand part as the White Lion, this converting the property into a licenced Alehouse.

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