Dunstable provides answer to Benskins pub postcard question

First, a mystery now partly solved, relates to a photographic postcard by ‘Kay’ of a Benskins public house. I purchased it many years ago at the Hertfordshire Postcard Collectors’ Club and now wanted to trace the building. With an impressive lantern above the door, a sign indicating ‘Dinners’ and an opening to the left leading to ‘good stabling’ at the rear, it is a substantial building. Ich Dien and the Prince of Wales feathers appear on the sign, with ‘Benskins Watford Ales’ emblazoned across the upper storey. Benskins draymen with horses and wagons would have delivered beer and ale directly to the cellar via the pavement trap door.

Two women, one with a shirt and tie, perhaps military uniform, appear at an upper window amid the ubiquitous lace curtains. High Wycombe-born Arthur Britnell’s name appears as the licensee: a licensed retailer of wines and spirits, as well as a dealer in tobacco. But, as far as I am aware, Arthur was a carpenter and joiner who was a Private in World War One, possibly in the 13th Hussars. I have found no record of him as publican. Who held that role? A mature soldier appears at the entrance; a Staff Sergeant in the Royal Field or Horse Artillery who had modified the second button of his jacket to indicate mourning for a relative killed in the war. Was he about to return to the front, hence the gathering? Who was he – and the others?

Benskins Plume of Feathers public house, 8 West Street, Dunstable, 1915. By 'Kay'

Benskins public houses were well spread and, after much searching for Prince of Wales pubs, eliminating those in Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Middlesex, I looked at Bedfordshire. Then I spotted the Plume of Feathers, 8 West Street, Dunstable; Grade II listed. The frontage remains recognisable, but the stable entrance has been incorporated into the building. It is now The Way Coffee House and The Way Christian Community Centre at the rear. I am grateful for a brilliant update to the postcard.

The Way Coffee House, 8 West Street, Dunstable, 2024. L-R Steve Neal, Pastor to the Community; Gareth Mitchell, Associate Pastor; Hannah Newton, Barista; and Maya Illiev, Catering Manager & Barista

My old photograph was from World War One, but which year? Theatre posters on the wall of the stable entrance promoted a Grand Theatre production of the Broadway musical comedy, The Girl in the Taxi, which opened at the Lyric Theatre, London in 1912, with actor and tenor Strafford Moss as Head Waiter. After much help, advice and encouragement from those credited below in terms of World War One soldiers and theatricals, it appears that the production was making an anticipated return to the Grand Theatre, Luton, playing to crowded houses the week of Monday, May 28, 1915. So, now I could finally date the postcard.

But that’s not all! On the back of the postcard, ‘Beat’ (there was a Beatrice Britnell) wrote to laundress Miss Lucy Benning of New Marston, Oxford: ‘Dear Luce, Find the puzzle’. Was she one of the girls at the window? Or was there more to it? A puzzling postcard!

Example of an 18th century tavern drinking pot. Courtesy of John Howard, Antique Pottery.co.uk

Now here’s a mystery even further back in time. Historian Henry Williams left me wondering about two earthenware tavern drinking pots, described in his History of Watford in the mid-1880s. One was discovered in a heap of rubbish after a ‘very narrow escape from destruction by a pick.’ Retrieved by Mr G. Goss, it bore a Rose & Crown impression, the name Hannah Harding and the year 1755. Was she the innkeeper or did it mark a significant event in her life? A Hannah Harding of Watford married Finch Nicholl in Bushey on January 26, 1758. Might it have been her? But Watford’s long-demolished Rose & Crown, formerly at 72 High Street, did not date back that far. The pot must have originated from another centuries-old Rose & Crown. Rickmansworth?

A Benskins dray used for deliveries to public houses, 1904. Image: Benskins House Journal, The Pennant

A second tavern drinking pot, albeit missing its handle, came to light at a similar time as Hannah Harding’s. In the possession of David Groom, then a Solicitor’s Clerk of Loates Lane, it was impressed with a hart recumbent, the name Edward Addison and the year 1764. Edward Addison was appointed to the Postal Service on November 6, 1761. Could he have been promoted in 1764, hence the year on the pot or, seemingly unlikely, did he become the publican? In relatively modern days, the hart depicted on the old White Hart sign at 180 High Street was not recumbent. But could it have been on an earlier sign? Despite the building’s 15th century origins, it was one of countless victims of Watford’s grossly over-active demolition gangs working to order for road or High Street ‘improvements’. Now Edward Addison’s pot plot deepens.

White Hart public house on left, demolished in 1975. Image: Bob Nunn's Book of Watford, 1992. Courtesy of Linda Nunn

In the mid-1880s, Henry Williams tells us that a house opposite the pond next to North End House was occupied for many years earlier that century by Mrs Kinder; a widow who had lived there with her granddaughters. He also noted that it once bore the sign of a Hart, but was it recumbent? Any thoughts would be appreciated! The name later changed to the Artichoke, which survived at 112 The Parade for many years until it closed in 2005 and was later demolished. Gone now, along with North End House; in their place a plain red-brick building comprising shops and residential flats above.

The two drinking pots were considered worth saving from destruction and significant enough to include in Henry Williams’ the History of Watford, but what happened to them?

With grateful thanks to the administrator and members of the Great War Forum; Matthew Lloyd of Arthur Lloyd.co.uk; The Buckinghamshire Historical Association; Jonathan Barham of The Way Coffee House, The Way Christian Community Centre & Christ Church Dunstable; Linda Nunn; and John Howard, Antique Pottery.co.uk.

• Lesley Dunlop is the daughter of the late Ted Parrish, a well-known local historian and documentary filmmaker. He wrote 96 nostalgic articles for the ‘Evening Post-Echo’ in 1982-83 which have since been published in ‘Echoes of Old Watford, Bushey & Oxhey’, available at www.pastdayspublishing.com and Bushey Museum. Lesley is currently working on ‘Two Lives, Two World Wars’, a companion volume that explores her father’s and grandfather’s lives and war experiences, in which Watford, Bushey and Oxhey’s history will take to the stage once again.