Located at the far end of Watermoor Road just before the ring road, the Plume of Feathers has been an Arkell’s tied house for well over one hundred years.
Image: Mladen Dragojlovic
Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard, 23rd March 2000 – Plume with a new view: The Plume of Feathers in Cirencester’s Watermoor Road is flying in the face of current trends. Instead of chucking out all pub-based entertainments, like many pubs in town, it has filled the pub with fruit machines, dart boards and a pool table, as well as a video juke box and big screen TV. Not content with all this, Landlord Craig Holder is also awaiting delivery of some games machines.
Arkells Brewery, which owns the pub, has also invested a sound-system and a state-of-the-art conditioning system, to dispel excess smoke. Arkells managing director, James Arkell, said: “In a market town the size of Cirencester, there is often little to attract the younger pub-goer.
It was refurbished and reopened in February 2000 by James Arkell of the Kingsdown Brewery. It was renamed the Bees Knees in September 2000.
Landlord, Nigel Scrivens, once played for Gloucester Rugby Football Club.
From the notes of John Tiffney
PLUME OF FEATHERS
In all probability there may have been a beerhouse on the site, being on the main road to Cricklade, Wootton Bassett and later Swindon. It may have been part of the row of stone cottages that stand to the right of the present pub. George Woolley is recorded as a “Retailer of Beer at the “Princes Feathers’ Inn” in 1868. Arkells, the Swindon brewer, bought the pub in 1872 and rebuilt it in red brick, and may have changed the name to the “Plume of Feathers” at the same time. The Keen Family had charge of the “Plume of Feathers from 1901 until the 1980s. In 1905 William Keen, of the “Plume of Feathers, Watermoor, Cirencester” Cycle Manufacture and Repairer; Repairs of all kinds neatly, Cheaply and promptly executed.”
The pub was completely refurbished in the 1990s and renamed the “Bees Knees” in September 2000.
Licensing Details:
Owner in 1891: Arkell & Son, Kingsdown Brewery, Swindon
Rateable Value in 1891: £13.15s.0d.
Type of license in 1891: Beerhouse
Owner in 1903: Arkell & Son, Kingsdown Brewery, Swindon
Rateable Value in 1903: £40.0s.0d.
Type of license in 1903: Beerhouse
Closing time in 1903: 11pm
Landlords at the Plume of Feathers / Bees Knees include:
1871 George Woolly
1889, 1891 Albert Moss
1903,1913 William Keen
1939 Harry Keen
c.1946-c.1988 Jock Grieve
2000 Craig Holder (Plume of Feathers)
2000, Nigel and Sharon Scrivens (Bees Knees)