Situated on the junction with Millbrook Street and Jersey Road, just a few yards away from the junction with Barton Street immediately opposite the Vauxhall Inn. The address in 1936 lists the Beehive Inn as being at 10A Millbrook Street but the 1957 address is given as 2 Jersey Road.
In its early days it had connections with the Laburnham Brewery in Tredworth. John Apperley (brewer?) owned the Beehive c.1900.
On the afternoon of March 21st 1941, Millbrook Street was blasted by a German bomb. Forty years later a re-union was held on the spot where the bombs fell. A group of eight women joined the Rev. Leon Quest to commemorate and reflect. “It was a providential miracle,” recalled Mr Quest, who was minister of the Elim Church when it was bombed. “I had been asked to speak at a Sisterhood service, which was attended by 18 ladies, and several children, including my baby son, Paul. At 3.50 pm the service was just ending when the air raid warning sounded and I ran out to see what was happening.” To his horror Mr Quest saw three bombs fall from a German aircraft being chased over the city by an RAF fighter. He immediately rushed back into the church and shouted to everyone to lie flat. Within seconds one of the bombs struck the building and everything collapsed in smoke and flying debris. Stunned, Mr Quest pulled himself to his feet – he had been saved by the frame of a window which had fallen around him. Incredibly, the other members of the congregation stood up also, shaking glass and rubble from their hair and clothes. No-one had been seriously injured, only the gable wall of the church was still intact. The church was later demolished, together with several other bomb-damaged houses in Millbrook Street. The Sylroy Dancing School Hall was built on the site of the old Elim church.
Citizen: Friday 17th July, 1981. Gloucester will lose another of its old pubs when the Beehive in Millbrook Street closes this weekend with the retirement of ‘mine hosts’ Alfred and Myrtle Bignell. The pub, reported to have one of the best pints in the city, will be greatly missed by the regulars, particularly the shove ha’penny team which is in division one of the Gloucester Shove Ha’penny league. Prior to the Beehive Alfred and Myrtle had the one time Square and Compass in Westgate Street for nine and a half years.
The building is now privately occupied but there is a West Country Ales plaque still in situ.
Landlords at the Beehive Inn include:
1869 Elizabeth Warren
1870 George Bradley
1879 C. Bradley
1893 W.P Humphries
c.1900 George Bradley. (owner John Apperley – Laburnham Brewery)
1906 Miss L.E. Coole
1936 W.J. Richards
1957 Mrs E. Richards
1981 Alfred and Myrtle Bignell
