Pubs
Beer has been brewed in the UK for centuries, better for people to drink than local water as its processing included boiling and the yeast and alcohol involved killed harmful bugs that could result in cholera and other devastating diseases. Early beer was primarily a carbohydrate rich food ‘a soupy beverage’, in medieval times three fermentations were used providing a strong brew for men down to a weak 2.5% alcohol level drink for children.
It was during the First World War that Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, introduced the first nationwide regulations relating to the consumption and sale of alcohol. He considered it an issue of home front national security, stating we are “fighting Germans, Austrians and Drink, and as far as I can see the greatest foe is Drink”. He introduced regulations on the strength of beer, banned the buying of drinks for others in pubs and introduced opening hours.
The people of Passenham, Deanshanger and Puxley have had beer supplied through beer retailers (often domestic homes), inns and public houses. The 1847 Post Office Directory has entries listed for Deanshanger traders Thomas Blunsom and Mrs Ann Clark as Beer Retailers and Daniel Canvin as a Beer Retailer, owner of The Fox and Hounds and a Wheelwright. Ann Clark along with John Foddy is still listed as a beer retailer in 1862. Owners of larger Manor houses and farms often brewed beer for their domestic consumption.
Deanshanger has been the centre for the areas public houses. The Fox and Hounds (now the CoOperative store) was originally a different building to that we know today, it became integrated within the site of the Oxide Works and was used as an office. The current shop was first an Inn, then a Hotel, before becoming just a public house. The Duke’s Head located off The Green had a large outbuilding to its rear with a stage that was sometimes used as an indoor community space, theatre and dance hall and its proprietor was listed as Benjamin Stratford in 1847. The Woodman’s Arms off the High Street had a yard with a couple of cottages that were sold by Sgt Major Linnegar, the proprietor, when he was recalled into the Army in 1915. The original Rose and Crown was a thatched building in the hamlet of Little London. The replacement building on the corner of Folly Road and Little London which was built in the late 1930s is now a residential property but retains the pub insignia on its exterior. The only operational pub surviving today is The Beehive and is owned by the Charles Wells Brewery Company, although many of the Victorian images show that it had been part of the Newport Pagnell Brewery Company.
