Martin Edwards has done some research into the long-lost and bygone pubs of Cheltenham. He has compiled a list of licensed premises that were trading in the town in the year 1844. He has identified an unnamed beer house at 42/43 New Street which, he suggests, was later to become the Knapp Inn.
Alfred Price was the owner and occupier of the Knapp Inn in 1891 and he ran the pub as a free house, devoid of any brewery tie. The Knapp Inn was classified as a licensed beer house with an annual rateable value set in 1891 at £15.5s.0d.
The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery of Shepton Mallet in Somerset had bought the pub outright by 1903. The annual rateable value increased by six pounds to £21.5s.0d. In 1898 Anglo-Bavarian Brewery had bought out the business and had acquired the pub estate of Charles Garton & Co of Bristol and had inherited a number of licensed properties in Cheltenham. Perhaps with their extended trade reaching as far as Cheltenham it was decided to secure even more guaranteed outlets for their beers by purchasing free houses such as the Knapp Inn.
Landlords at the Knapp Inn include:
1844 James Overbury (listed as an unnamed beer house in New Street)
1891 Alfred Price
1903 Alfred Henry Humphries
1926,1939 Miss Edith Annie Johnson
