The Cross Hands Inn was on the north side of the Bristol Road.
During my research I have come across an old document that describes the Cross Hands Inn as ‘adjoining the Midland Railway Station’. This would have referred to the railway station on the Bristol and Gloucester Railway that opened to passengers on 8th July 1844. The station closed in January 1965. In its latter days the station was known as Stonehouse Bristol Road – to distinguish it from the GWR station at Burdett Road (which is still operating). The access to the Midland station was from the A419 Bristol Road just to the east of the present day railway bridge.
Gloucester Journal. 11th November 1898. Property Sale – Great interest was evinced in the auction sale which took place at the Crown and Anchor Hotel Stonehouse, on Friday. When a fairly large company had assembled, Mr Moore submitted the first lot to the hammer, which consisted of the public house the Cross Hands, on the Bristol and Bath road, containing bar, bar parlour, kitchen, beer cellar, sitting room, three bedrooms, store room, etc, large yard, brick built stabling, fowls’ house, cart shed, skittle alley, kitchen garden and paddock, containing about half an acre, with considerable frontage to the Bristol Road, and well adapted for building purposes. The whole let at £27 10s per annum to Messrs Smith, brewers, of Brimscombe, on lease for ten years from Michaelmas, 1896, and sublet to Mr J H Cook. The lot was knocked down to Messrs Chas Smith and Son, of Brimscombe, for £1,250.
Licensing Details:
Rateable Value in 1891: £22.0s.0d
Owner in 1891: Mrs Masling (leased to Smith & Sons, Brimscombe Brewery)
Type of licence in 1891: Alehouse
Rateable Value in 1903: £29.10s.0d.
Owner in 1903: Smith & Sons, Brimscombe Brewery
Type of licence in 1903: Alehouse
Closing time in 1903: 11pm
Landlords at the Cross Hands include:
1885 Frederick Selwyn Hawkins
1891 Christopher Stockwell
1897,1903 John Henry Cook
1906 Richard Roberts
