High Street

Milton Regis

Above print, date unknown, kindly sent by Paul Fosbraey.

The building is estimated to have been built in the early 1700s and tied to Messrs Style and Winch in the early 1900s, although was probably licensed by the 1830 beer act. The rent was £15, the annual value £32 and the rateable value £26.

1900s licensee John Cook, was a farm labourer who worked for a Mr. Bensted at Iwade. The custom of the house was derived chiefly from the lodgers, the house being conducted on the lines of a lodging house. There were sufficient beds to sleep about 20 people. A room, formerly used as a smoking room, had been converted into a bedroom to accommodate 6 people. When visited in 1908 by a newspaper reporter, the landlady informed him that there was about 14 lodgers. There was a passage running from the back of the house which mad police supervision rather bad.

A Mr W L Grant said he had examined the house and found it was a large house in a fair state of repair. The rooms were clean, and the major portion of the premises were used exclusively as a lodging house, the downstairs rooms were filled with beds for that purpose. Some of the rooms were very low, and badly ventilated. The pitch of the downstairs rooms is about the normal, upstairs they are only 6ft high.

LICENSEE LIST

FOSTER Thomas 1839

MILWAY Henry to Nov/1869

NOBEL John Nov/1869+

JEFFERY George to May/1873

GOODWIN William May/1873+

TIBBIES P Mrs 1903+

COOK John to 1908.

East Kent Gazette

From the Kelly's Directory 1903