Spittlemoor, 120 Lower Ford Street

Alternative Addresses:1 Hood Street
Spittlemoor Inn, Lower Ford StThe Spittlemore was the area of land north of the city walls bounded by the River Sherbourne and Springfield Brook, which drains the Swanswell. The two joined at Gosford Bridge. Presumably between these two water courses was a wet moorland at one time - the Spittlemoore. Both water courses are culverted now and pass nearby the pub. The first known owner of the lands called 'Spittlemoore' was Frances Broughton of Cawston Hall near Dunchurch, who in 1707 left the Spittlemoore to a charity committee to provide a school for Dunchurch. The Spittlemoore was tenanted by Charles Ash and John Poole, later by Margaret Burrows (a widow) and Tranter (no christian name), then Thomas White, a baker, then Thomas Sanders, a butcher from Jordan Well, then Peter Walker, a publican and butcher and then by William Moore, a butcher. The land was divided into five enclosures. This all suggests that it was used to stockade cattle brought into the city for slaughter. The combination of publican and butcher was quite a common one as both trades fed the populace. In 1853 the charity committee applied to and gained permission from the Master of the Rolls to sell the lands and invest the resultant funds for the good of the charity. The Spittlemoore, consisting of 15 acres, was sold to John Warden, a plumber and glazier, and William Henry Marston, a pawnbroker, for £5,479 1s 3d. Spittlemoor, Lower Ford StIn a deed of 1856 we learn that several new streets had been laid out by Warden and Marston on the 'Spittlemoore Estate', including one called or to be called 'Ford Street', and that numbered plots of land were being sold by then along Ford Street. Plot owners were forbidden 'to erect or suffer to be erected any brick kiln or make or burn or suffer to be made or burnt and bricks, tiles or quarries thereon'. Since the plots were sold individually, building took place over a number of years into the 1870s, unlike a modern estate where all the houses are built at more or less the same time. In 1860 we have a record of the transfer of the license from Joseph Horton to Andrew Sumner but in 1861 a new license for the Spittlemoore Inn was granted to its first licensee, William Langley. In 1985 it was "a pleasant small pub in a redevelopment area which has been renovated inside but not outside". It had closed by 2010 and became a Lebanese restaurant.

LICENSEES:

1860 Joseph Horton 1860 Andrew Sumner 1861 - 1871 William Langley architect & licensed victualler 1879 - 1893 Arthur Harris 1894 W. J. Mills 1896 B. Keene 1903 Mrs L. Keene 1905 - 1913 Mrs L. Thrasher 1919 - 1924 William Thrasher 1926 - 1938 H. F. Welch 1939 - 1940 R. C. Roberts 1993 M. Walsh 1993 - 1995 Fred Luckett 1995 M. Walsh
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