Slaters Arms Public House

Slaters Arms July 2007

Slater’s Arms Public House: Box End Road, Box End, Kempston Rural

The Slater's Arms began as a beerhouse| and the first reference to the building, before it was licensed, is as one of six cottages settled on Thomas Mitchell and his new wife Sarah Ann in 1853. Thomas died in 1877 but his widow continued to own the premises until her death in 1901, her trustees selling them to Bedford brewers Higgins & Sons the following year. When the beerhouse was first licensed is not known but the first reference to it seems to be in 1862 when a trust deed with the same parties as that of 1853 refers to one of four cottages leased by George Higgins and his undertenant Joseph Smith, strongly suggesting that it was already a beerhouse. By 1903: George Slater was the licensee, he had formerly been a shopkeeper in Margetts Road, Kempston. The Slater family remained licensees for the next 86 years suggesting, though nowhere explicitly stated, that this is how the initially unnamed beerhouse gained its name.

Higgins & Sons were taken over by Biggleswade brewers Wells & Winch Limited in 1927 and they, in their turn, by Suffolk brewers Greene King in 1961. At the time of writing [2007] the Slater's Arms, now a fully licensed public house, remains a Greene King house.

In 1927 Bedfordshire was valued under the Rating Valuation Act 1925; each piece of land and building was valued to determine the rates to be paid on it. The valuer noted that the house was of brick, slate and tile with accommodation comprising a tap room, front room (both "rather small"), kitchen and cellar (with a 7-18 gallon pull) downstairs with 3 bedrooms above and a washhouse and earth closet outside. Weekly trade consisted of 1¼ barrels 1½  dozen bottles of beer. The valuer commented: "fair piece of garden but a very poor pub". 

Sources

- GK81/1: recited family settlement of messuage, four cottages, brick kilns, close and two further cottages at Kempston by Thomas and Sarah Ann Mitchell to William Thurnall of Bedford, surgeon and William Spencer Mitchell of Cambridge, innkeeper: 1853;
- GK81/1: recited mortgage by trustee to Joseph Smith Brand and Frederick Alfred Steward: 1872;
- GK81/1: recited mortgage by trustee to John Harris: 1873, redeemed 1874;
- GK81/1: recited death of Thomas Mitchell: 1877;
- GK81/1: recited death of Sarah Ann Mitchell: 1901;
- GK81/2: conveyance of messuage in Box End now used as a beerhouse by trustees to Higgins Sons Limited: 1902;
- DV1/C/2: rating valuation: 1927

List of Licensees: note that this is not a complete list. Italics indicate licensees whose beginning and/or end dates are not known:

1854: John Smith;
1862: Joseph Smith;
1864: James Smith
1876-1898: Charles Tysoe;
1903-1929: George Slater;
1929-1932: Sarah Slater;
1932-1946: Arthur Slater;
1946: Gertrude Louisa Slater;
1958: Leslie George Slater;
1989: Leslie George Slater;
1989-1995: Steven David Grierson