Snarestone Village’s Oldest pub
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in our traditional English pub or maybe a relaxing drink in our spacious garden.
Snarestone’s Oldest Countryside Pub
The Old Crown Inn – A History
In 1766 there were four alehouses in Snarestone and local records from 1772 reveal that George Gadsby was the landlord of a Crown Inn but the names of the other alehouses are not known. By 1785 the village had two pubs and by 1795 it appears that the Crown Inn was the only survivor of these early establishments. The Gadsby family had a long association with the Crown Inn that lasted until 1820. Official records (1) of the landlord and pub name commenced in 1825 and the following is a list of some of the licensees for the Crown Inn over the last 200 years:
1826
James Mead
1827
1842
1872
1873 – 1874
1875 – 1881
John Taylor
1882
1883 – 1884
1885
1885 - 1890
1890 – 1892
1893 – 1912
1912 – 1919
1920 – 1929
1925
1929 – 1949
1949 – 1960
1960
In those days it was a real time capsule, and customers remembered it as having changed very little since the Burton Brewing Company bought it in 1885. Indeed, local historian Mick Stretton who remembers drinking at the Crown when he first moved to Snarestone, discovered that the ‘Snarestone Friendly Society’ which was a form of savings bank common across the country where working men paid into in order to provide an income should they fall on hard times, was based at the pub. These societies gradually became redundant when social security was introduced after the second world. The Snarestone Friendly Society was based in a side room at The Crown known as the ‘Crown Lodge’. Mick remembers being allowed into the Lodge room and it was as if the door had been shut and the room and contents had been abandoned many years ago.
Since then the pub has changed hands several times, being modernised and enlarged with the addition of a restaurant and guest rooms in the early 1990s. It has also had some name changes along the way to the Odd House and then the Lonely Lion and back again to the Odd house and now finally back to its original name of Old Crown Inn to acknowledge and reflect the long history of the establishment and celebrate its status as the oldest pub in the village.
With grateful thanks to Mick Stretton for his help in compiling this short history
(1) Ref: Alehouse Recognizance Register 1753 – 1977
