Bell Inn, Station Avenue, Tile Hill
| Alternative Addresses: | Westwood, Stoneleigh | ||
| These premises have been known by different names during their history: | FROM | TO | NAME |
| 1837 | 1853 | Wheelwrights Arms | |
| 1853 | 2020 | Bell Inn | |
| 2020 | Auction House | ||
Westwood and Tile Hill were once part of the Stoneleigh Estate of Lord Leigh, hence the alternative address of Stoneleigh. The pub has been much modernised and lies near to Tile Hill railway station.
Until 1853 this was the Wheelwrights Arms. In September 1853 it was renamed the BELL INN, the license being returned to Thomas Chattaway after Edward Jackson had filed for insolvency. Occasionally it was called the Bell in the Tree.
We have a description of the pub in 1906. Then it was a simple ale house with stone floors, scrubbed wooden tables and barrels of Phillips & Marriotts on the bar. The customers were mainly farmers and their labourers, topped up on high days and holidays by the occasional charabanc load from Coventry. On New Years Day, the licensee would put on a huge supper for the villagers. Trestle tables were laid out in the room upstairs, groaning under the weight of great joints of beef, lamb and pork.
After a refurb in early 2020, the pub reopened as the Auction House on the 22nd July that year - delayed due to the Corona Virus Pandemic.The bell is a distinctive yet simple shape which has greatly appealed to sign makers through the centuries. Church bells and hand bells are usually those that are referred to in pub signs. | |||
LICENSEES:1853 Thomas Chattaway 1863 - 1876 Mark Chattaway 1880 Mrs Emma Chattaway 1888 - 1892 George Molesworth 1900 - 1908 Mrs Emma Molesworth 1912 Ernest Oxberrow 1921 - 1940 Frank Bull 1958 - 1961 onwards H.V. Taylor (previously at the Smithfield Hotel, Hales Street from 1939 -1958) to 2014 Sarah Walker (see also at Newlands, Tile Hill Lane 2014 onwards) 2014 to present Rebecca Field | |||
| Previous page: Bell and Crown | This page: Bell Inn | Next page: Ben Johnson |