Harbledown

Reference has been found to this pub, but at present all is known is the name. It is suggested by Rory Kehoe that this pub may well have closed in the mid 1800's and the building demolished (or perhaps changed name) to make way for a new one which is the "Old Coach and Horses."

Over the road, at the bottom of the steps which lead down from St. Michael's Church and on the site of the current "Old Coach and Horses," stood the "Earl Grey." It's very likely that this was a beer house, which gained its licence as a result of the Beerhouse Act of 1830 which allowed ratepayers to sell beer on payment of 2 Guineas. Possibly by way of a thank you, the pub was named in honour of the Prime Minister, Earl Grey (1830-34) though it was Duke of Wellington's Government which actually brought in the Beerhouse Act. The "Earl Grey" was certainly trading in 1837 as it appears on the Harbledown Tithe Map.

In 1838 the St. Dunstan's Brewery of Flint & Kingsford's leased the "Coach and Horses" from the Lord of the Manor of Hall Court and it seems likely that they were responsible for the closure of the original pub (probably sometime in the 1840s/50s) and the transfer of the name/licence to a new building on the site of what had been the "Earl Grey." Whether James Shaxby (baker/shopkeeper/beer retailer) of the "Earl Grey" stayed on in the early years of the newly-located "Old Coach and Horses" isn't yet known.
 

LICENSEE LIST

SHAXBY James 1840s+