Many will know of pubs that have disappeared recently in Thatcham and surrounding areas, sadly many though soon forget. See my previous posts for some more info on some of the pubs (click here). I will post more details on all of these pubs, but thought I might share a few that I have discovered that many have long since forgotten, some for good reason (not in living memory).
In Cold Ash and Ashmore Green we have a few survivors including the The Castle, Spotted Dog and The Sun In The Wood. However go back a bit further in history and we have the Five Alls, The Pheasant on the Ridge, Hartley Arms, Fir Trees, The Fir Tree, The Stone and Shaw’s Beerhouse. Wow that is a lot of pubs! But it is not though. Let me explain.
The Five Alls I believe is actually what The Castle was called for a short period in the 1800s. Hartley Arms, Fir Trees and The Fir Tree are all one pub just with different names. Shaw’s Beerhouse, operated by Joseph Shaw, is what I think became The Stone and then became the Sun-in-the-wood. This burnt down in 1886 and was rebuilt. So although there are many pub names, there are not actually that many pub buildings, just a lot of name changes. What I do find odd is that I cannot find a single one dating before 1831, which would seem to imply they are all a result of the beerhouse act.
Cold Ash was not that heavily populated but I would expect to have seen a pub of some sort before then. In addition most of Cold Ash was part of Thatcham, it did not become a separate civil parish until the 1890s. A few parts, for example around the Hartley Arms, appear to have been considered to be in Bucklebury Parish. It might be that some of the other pubs I have listed in Thatcham and that I cannot currently place are actually in Cold Ash.
