Fellow pub historian Martin Edwards has compiled a list of Cheltenham pubs in 1844 – a mere 178 years ago – as I write this in 2022!! There are some real surprises in the list, like the Hop Pole at 46 St Pauls Street North that probably served their last pints of beer over 150 years ago. The Hop Pole was a simple beer house.
The present day 46 St Pauls Street North is situated about halfway in the row of terraced houses on the eastern side of the street and has no identifying features to suggest that it was ever a licensed premises. Indeed I wonder if the present occupiers of the property even know that their living room might have once been the bar of the Hop Pole Inn!
Landlord:
1844 Jacob Martin
Hi Geoff,
I can’t really add much to this one…except to say in the 1838 Annuaire page 115 – 116 there is a list showing the “Number of Inhabited Houses in the Parish of Cheltenham in Spring of 1837” and St. Paul’s Street North and South even then had 84. Yet nobody is listed, and in the 1839 Annuaire, only “Leonard Mr., Artist, 57, St. Paul’s Street North” is the only individual listed apart from those on the “Register of Electors” (where 23 have St. Paul’s Street North addresses, but only two have numbers).
In the 1844 Annuaire there is a listing for “Davis F., Painter” in “St. Paul’s street N.” and a “Post Office Branch Receiving House in At. Paul’s Street” (recorded since 1841), but that’s it: as I say, the earlier Annuaires are not really concerned with working class residents or lowly beerhouses! This is exactly the same in the 1845 – 1847 Annuaires.
Other directories such as the 1844 Harper’s are better, and from the 1847 Hunt & Co. (which is available online) they start to list “Beer Retailers” as well as more individuals in streets like St. Paul’s Street North.
In the 1847 Hunt & Co. Directory under “Beer Retailers” there is a listing for “Hillman, Ann, 46, St. Paul’s St”
On the 1855-7 Old Town Survey map, the numbering of St. Paul’s Street doesn’t show a 46 in St. Paul’s Street South – it runs 1 – 16 on the west side, and on the east 1 – 8 Limekiln Place, then 1 St. Paul’s Crescent) whereas St. Paul’s Street North does have a no. 46 (running 1 – 32 on the west side south to north, then 33 – 66 back down the east side north to south) as now. On the 1855-7 Old Town Survey map, no. 46 is not named or marked as a beer house, so had stopped being one by then. But it would appear that it still existed as one in 1847.
In the 1848 Edwards Directory J. Hooper is recorded as a “Beer Retailer” in “St. Paul’s street” but no number is given. However, he couldn’t have been at the Brewers’ Arms (7 St. Paul’s Street North) because John Paget is listed as a “Beer Seller” at “7, St. Paul’s street” in the same list (showing that it didn’t distinguish St. Paul’s Street North).
“Paget J” though is the only “Beer Retailer” listed with a St. Paul’s street address in the 1850 Edwards directory (still no. 7), so I assume that the Hop Pole was still trading in 1848 with J. Hopper as landlord or landlady, but had closed by 1850.
I have no idea how long it might have been trading prior to 1844 (though not likely to have been before the Beerhouse Act of 1830).
I know this doesn’t expand the history of the Hop Pole by much, but it gives it another 4 years at least, and reflects how difficult it is to trace early beerhouses.
Alan Jones