Gardeners Arms Beerhouse

Gardeners Arms Beerhouse: 20 Sun Street, Potton

 
former Gardener's Arms in March 2007

The Gardeners Arms was a beerhouse|. The first reference to it in any document held by Bedfordshire & Luton Archives & Records Service is in 1872, in a licensing register, when owned by the devisees of Thomas Strickland and run by James Jeakins. The property passed to James Home of Potton (as dertailed by the licensing register) before being bought by Alfred Richardson who had begun a brewery in Biggleswade in 1869, moving to Potton in 1880; he mortgaged the Gardeners Arms and three licensed houses in Potton (Two Brewers, Cross Keys and Red Lion) and properties elsewhere to William Thomas Chapman in 1877. At some point Richardson sold the premises to George Kitchiner and then he to Biggleswade brewers Wells & Winch who owned the beerhouse until its closure in 1957.

In 1927 the property was surveyed under the 1925 Rating Valuation Act. The valuer considered it an: "Unattractive looking place" consisting of 3 bedrooms and a box room upstairs with a tap room, living room, cellar and kitchen below, outside were a wash house and WC, a hovel and stable. Trade was not brisk; the business sold about a barrel a week including four dozen bottles - about a third of the trade was bitter, the rest mild

References:
- HF143/1: Register of Alehouse Licences - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1872-1873;
- HF143/2: Register of Alehouse Licences - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1874-1877;
- X501/12: provisional deed of charge by Alfred Richardson to William Thomas Chapman of property including four Potton public houses: 1877;
- HF143/3: Register of Alehouse Licences - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1878-1881;
- X501/15: mortgaged, with other property, by Alfred Richardson to William Thomas Chapman: 1880, redeemed 1894;
- X501/16: mortgaged, with other property, by Alfred Richardson to Henry Raynes: 1881, redeemed 1894;
- HF143/1: Register of Alehouse Licences - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1872-1873;
- HF143/2: Register of Alehouse Licences - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1874-1877;
- HF143/3: Register of Alehouse Licences - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1878-1881;
- HF143/4: Register of Alehouse Licences - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1882-1890;
- HF143/5: Register of Alehouse Licences - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1891-1900;
- HF143/6: Register of Alehouse Licences - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1900-1914;
- PSBW8/1: Register of Alehouse Licences - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1903-1915;
- DV1/C11: rating valuation: 1927;
- GK297/3: with other properties, conveyed by Newland & Nash Limited to Wells & Winch Limited: 1938;
- PSBW8/2: Register of Alehouse Licences - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1956-1972

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

1872-1876: James Jeakins;
1876-1879: Henry Parkin;
1879-1881: William Peacock;
1881-1882: Henry King
David Savill;
1886: George Head;
Edward Williams;
1891-1898: William Barringer;
1898-1901: Rebecca Barringer;
1901-1904: William Lenton;
1904-1907: William Hutchinson;
1907-1910: William Matthews;
1910-1924: Esau Clark Jackson;
1928: James Yarrell;
1931-1940: Annie Yarrell;
1957: Harry James Dobson;
1957: William Harry Brooks
Beerhouse closed 3 Aug 1957