SPRING TAVERN Pubs of Wrotham

DOVER KENT ARCHIVES

Page Updated:- Saturday, 16 April, 2022.

PUB LIST

PUBLIC HOUSES

Paul Skelton

Earliest 1840-

Spring Tavern

Closed 1980

London Road

Nepicar

Wrotham

https://whatpub.com/spring-tavern

Above photo, showing the 2nd pub with this name I believe, date unknown, kindly sent by Michael Mirams.

Above photo circa 1948. Kindly sent by Shaun Gardiner.

Above photo, circa 1948.

Above card showing the log book for deliveries 1939-61.

From the passage that follows dated May 1842 I will deduce that a new building was being put in place of the old.

I believe once a tied house to the adjacent Nepicar brewery until 1905 when the brewery was sold to Goldings of Sevenoaks. The pub eventually ended up as a Charrington house after a succession of further takeovers.

The Spring Tavern would have derived much of its trade from motorists and coast-bound excursions, but the brewery took the decision close the house in 1980 and the pub was demolished some years later. The only parts left standing were two substantial brick-built pillars but these too have disappeared and as at 2020 the site has been reclaimed by nature pending redevelopment.

South Eastern Gazette 3 May 1842.

TO BUILDERS AND OTHERS.

Plans and Specifications for the erection of the "Spring Tavern" at Nepicar, near Wrotham, may be seen on the old premises on and after Wednesday, the 4th instant.

Tenders will be opened on Friday, 13th inst., at Twelve o'clock. Personal attendance will be required.

Payments will be made weekly as the works progress, and the whole within one month after completion.

Mr. Bush, Surveyor, Hayes-place, St. John's Wood, London.

Kentish Gazette 6 December 1842.

MARRIAGE.

Nov. 13, May. Marylebone church, Mr. Streeter, of "Spring Tavern," Wrotham, to Miss Martha Judge, of Wrotham.

From the Maidstone Telegraph, Rochester and Chatham Gazette, 8 June 1861.

Thomas Bennett, innkeeper, of Wrotham, pleaded guilty to the charge of having his house open for the sale of beer after the hour of 11 o'clock on the night of the 7th of April last.

The defendant said he was sorry, and had not offended intentionally. He was, however, fined £1, including costs which he paid.

(I am assuming this is the same as John Bennett. Paul Skelton.)

Kent Courier 6th September 1929.

Licensing Business.

The Bench approved of the following full transfers; "Spring Tavern, Wrotham, from the late Mr. Roberts to his widow, Mrs. Eva Roberts.

From an email sent 26 March 2018.

The following is an except from the book "The Streeter of Bond Street. A Victorian Jeweller." By Patrick Streeter.

Edwin William Streeter was a man of contrasts. Born of humble origins, he gained considerable fame and fortune only to recede at the end of his long life to genteel poverty and obscurity. He initiated highly successful expeditions to Burma to exploit the ruby mines, and to Australia to open up the pearling beds, but also backed disastrous ventures, which became the laughing stock of the financial press, to seek emeralds in Egypt and sapphires in North America. Likened to a Victorian Harry Winston, he presided for thirty-seven years over a prosperous Mayfair jewellery emporium. He wrote a number of well received and authoritative books which today are often quoted, yet he put forward stories about the history of his family and his firm which are pure fiction.

Edwin Streeter was born in 1834 at Wrotham, Kent. His father was proprietor of the "Spring Tavern" in the village and before taking up that trade had been a carpenter. His grandfather had also been an innkeeper at the "Chequers" in nearby Igtham. His parents had three other children, two of whom did not survive infancy. His mother died of consumption when he was seven and his little sister, Sarah, then aged two, was farmed out to live with friends. She, sadly, was to die of scarlatina five years later. In 1846 his father moved to Dover to take up the "Providence Inn." In a letter written to the Goldsmiths’ Company when he was 85, Streeter stated that he ‘started in trade in 1847’. This fact is backed up by a short biography published in Leading Men of London in 1895 which stated, ‘He came to London while still in his thirteenth year. Having completed his education, he entered upon the career which he had chosen.’