Looking Back - Updated 14th January 2010
Each week local history enthusiast and amateur archaeologist John Burnett, of South Kirkby, takes a look at a topic of local interest from past times.
When is a shed not a shed? Give up? Then the answer is when it's a club house.
Around 1900 Albert Schofield, who lived in a caravan at the far end of Carr Lane, South Kirkby, had on his allotment a large brick, timber and corrugated iron shed which he used as a storehouse and to stable the odd horse or two.
To the men housed down Carr Lane, the nearest place they could get a drink was to walk the length of the lane to the Traveller's Inn, so after a lengthy discussion they decided to rent the 'shed' from Albert and turn it into a club, which lasted a few years before being pulled down.
A nearby building was then converted into another club and named the Victoria Working Men's Club or the Bush, as it was later known. This building was condemned later when the dance craze became popular.
I was interested to read that pub landlords had other interesting jobs besides running the pub. For example, in 1856 George Umpleby the Traveller's Inn keeper was a wood turner when trade was slack.
Before then his father Thomas Umpleby is recorded as fostering a young pauper at the inn in 1818. An agreement was drawn up between South Kirkby's people and Thomas that he would take Mary Dince for four years and provided he fed and kept her, and paid the overseers of the poor an annual fee, they would clothe her and he would have an unpaid servant.
The Traveller's must be the only inn that had its own mortuary, which became a changing room for the local football team after a new one was built at Moorthorpe cemetery.
The Rose and Crown across from South Kirkby Church had a long line of family keepers known as the Watertons, who were a prominent family of the area. In 1856 Mary Waterton was landlady to the inn and a victualler at that.
Historically, a victualler is a provider of food and refreshment to the army, but more commonly referred to now as an inn keeper.
The White Hart Inn at North Elmsall, first mentioned in 1611, was also a calling place for the coaches carrying prisoners to the 'House of Correction' at Wakefield.
During the late medieval period William Battyson and Jonas Downes of South Hiendley were the chosen ale tasters of the area and their job was to visit pubs to oversee that ale was served to a good standard and of the correct measure.
Getting legless and being paid for it … whatever next!
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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