300 year old pub or is it....... (calling Dot :-)

[mccfluff]

hi, i live near a pub and there is a bit of a local dispute going on, the landlady is claiming its a 300 year old oub, but others in the village are saying that it used to be a funeral palour and some other kind of shop at some point. Any ideas on where i go the find out what it was registered as over the years and possibly when it was built? ihave found one site which gives me landlords as far back as 1850
http://www.tamworth-heritage-pubs.co.uk/threet uns-fazeley.htm

thanks

[Buenchico]

If Dot (or anyone else) can't suggest anything online, you might need to visit the Staffordshire Record Office. (If you do, make sure you take proof of both identity and address, so that you can be issued with a reader's ticket). They should have the records you require:
http://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/leisure/archiv es/sro/

Chris

[dot.hawkes]

Hi fluffy, before the local licensing laws came in, there were inns and hostels and beer sellers that would all be consuiidered these days as Pubs. Your really best bet is to look at the Quarter sessions records covering that area, you could also identify the property on the tithe maps (1850s)or the land tax assessmenst (1784-1820s), it shouold be on the 1841 census, though then it might just be that a beer seller lived there. My ancestors ran the Red Lion Pub at Stockton Heath from 1841 - 1913 and there license applications and grants are at the Cheshire Record Office, which is where the local authority sends all the historical archive.
Looking at old maps would only give you the word INN as a clue not so much the name.

[mccfluff]

maybe it was a beer seller in the front and funeral palour out the back, that would keep everyine happy!

what are the quarter sessions records?

and thanks to both of you

[dot.hawkes]

the quarter sessions were the local courts that eventually developed into the current majistrates courts, they were held 4 times a year at michalmaes easter errr, summer, forgot the other one lol.. all sorts of issues were dealt with from sheep stealing to bast@rdy and settlement (passports) but the reason i think you would find info on local inns is because that is where some of the sessions might have been held, as not all towns had court buildings and the sessions moved around the county sitting in a different town each quarter