Pub Odyssey 26

Monday 4 July:  ROSE AND CROWN, TEWIN  (Malcolm Allen, Mike Horsman, Elvis Pile, Bob Polydorou, David Room, Andrew Swift, Jeff Tipper, Roger Toms, John Westwood)


COMMENT:  The Rose and Crown, our local, is an old and famous Hertfordshire pub which according to the History of Tewin (published 2009) "is thought to have been built in about 1650 on the front of an older building that stood on the site and which now forms part of the present kitchens".  The History makes the point that the Rose is probably, even now, about the same size as it was when built in 1650 and also that it was a true village pub, not on a major coaching route and bypassed by the railways.  This rural nature is further illustrated by the fact that the landlords often described themselves as "publican and farmer", running a small farm or smallholding in conjunction with the main  business of selling alcohol. 

The pub's fame relates.to the period of the Napoleonic Wars, when it features almost daily in the remarkable diaries (1798-1810) of  John Carrington of Bacon's Farm, Bramfield.  Carrington was a great man for food and drink and his son Jack held the tenancy at the Rose and Crown from 1791 to 1833.  The elder Carrington was often in the Rose with or without friends, eating  enormous meals and drinking impressive amounts for a man in his seventies. Both Carringtons were important local figures and the Rose seems to have been a big operation.  In June 1805 a beer engine was installed there; beer engines were very recent inventions and rarely seen at that date outside London.  The younger Carrington, the landlord, dealt in big money; for instance he recorded that by 1812 he had lost £3000 (a vast sum in those days) due to the bad behaviour of his brother-in-law.  At that stage the Rose was certainly far more important than the Plume of Feathers, laconically described by the older Carrington in 1799 as an "alehouse".  Nowadays the boot is very much on the other foot.  I don't think many would argue with the proposition that in the last couple of decades the Plume has been very much the more successful pub.

The Rose had just acquired a new landlord when we arrived there and the pub did fine, producing for us good beer and good honest pub food.  Let's hope he is a success.