The Royal Oak Public House Potton

Royal Oak Public House: Moon's Corner, later known as Oak Hill, then 4-6 Biggleswade Road, Potton [also Old Royal Oak]

Royal Oak Mar 2007

When Department of Environment accorded this public house| Grade II Listed status it described the building as formerly two properties and 17th-18th century in date. The first reference in any record held by Bedfordshire & Luton Archives & Records Service is the licensing register of 1822-1828. By 1834 it was owned by Biggleswade brewer Samuel Wells, who devised it in his will to Frederick Hogg and William Lindsell.

Royal Oak entry in sale catalogue

The public house continued in Wells & Company ownership through the nineteenth century. In 1899 Wells & Company was purchased by Kent businessman George Winch for his son Edward Bluett Winch, becoming Wells & Winch Limited. The company merged with Suffolk brewers Greene King in 1961, becoming Greene King (Biggleswade) in 1963, the Biggleswade reference being dropped in 1990.

In 1927 the public house was assessed for rates under the 1925 Rating Valuation Act. The valuer noted it had "very low pitched rooms" it was "very old fashioned. Dark. At cross roads". it had three bedrooms and a box room upstairs and below, a tap room, parlour, living room, sitting room, kitchen and, below that, a cellar. I sold a barrel of mild weekly and nine gallons of bitter. It only sold a quarter of a gallon of spirits a month.

The Royal Oak is still [Mar 2007] a Greene King public house having been demolished and rebuilt in 1979.

References: - CLP13: Register of Alehouse Licenses: 1822-1828; - GK0/1: conveyance of brewery and licensed properties of Samuel Wells of Biggleswade, brewer, deceased to Frederick Hogg and William Lindsell: 1834; - Z1039/34/1: epitome of conveyance from John William Drew and others to William Hogg and Robert Lindsell: 1835; - CLP13: Register of Alehouse Licenses: 1822-1828; - 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; - Z1039/34/2a: conveyance of licensed properties from Frederick Archdale, Charles Samuel Lindsell, Henry Martin Lindsell and Arthur Knox Lindsell to Wells & Winch: 1899; - GK1/36: three sales catalogues bound together: Wells & Company of Biggleswade 1898; Henlow Brewery 1899; Baldock Brewery Limited 1903; - 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/C/9: rating valuation survey; - X758/1/10/21: phtotograph of darts team: c.1940s; - PSBW8/2: Register of Alehouse Licences - Biggleswade Petty Sessional Division: 1956-1972; - X758/1/17/39: photograph post reconstruction: c.1970; - X758/1/8/81-85: photographs: c.1970s; - PSBW8/3: Register of Alehouse Licences - Biggleswade and North Bedfordshire Petty Sessional Divisions: 1976-1980.

 List of Licensees: note that this is not a complete list. Italics indicate licensees whose beginning and/or end dates are not known:
1822: Ann Seamer;
1824: Thomas Seamer;
1830: Ann Seamer;
1861-1894: George Kitchener;
1894-1896: George Kitchiner;
1896-1904: George Summerfield;
1904-1905: Sarah Summerfield;
1905-1927: Frederick George Summerfield;
1928-1931: John Arthur Poole;
1936-1940: Walter S Arney;
1957-1958: Frederick George Wright;
1958-1963: Arthur Edwards Simmons;
1963-1970: Sidney Walter Thomas Coleman;
1970: Arthur Francis Daglish Richardson;
1976: John Barry Hare