Home > Bedfordshire > Ravensden > Case Is Altered Case Is Altered
Date of photo: 1991	Picture source: Michael Croxford
The Case Is Altered was situated at Church End. This pub was present by 1786, closed in 1995 and is now in residential use.  In it's day it was unique.  A village thatched pub with, skittle team etc. had been refurbished in the 1960's with red Formica tables and mock brick wall paper. There wasn't a bar - just a plank over the door to the beer barrels and till (of sorts) and rows of old sweet jars.
Source: Sylvee Snowling
When I visited in 1991 there was one small room with four tables, one in each corner. There was a bead curtain separating the cellar from the bar. You went through this to get served. The Landlord was very old, wearing a three piece suit with a watch chain. Only keg beer; the kegs stood upright on the floor, and as mentioned there was a bank of large sweet jars on one wall.
Michael Croxford (April 2020)
I knew the pub well in the 1970's (legally so from 1973). The "very old landlord", Dick Peet was, at that time, the licensee's husband - the pub had come through Connie's family. At the time the Tartan bitter was no worse than the Charles Wells keg bitter available at the competing Horse and Jockey. A real attraction on a quiet evening was to listen to Dick talk about his youth, the only person in the village who could handle the epicyclic transmission on a Model T, and an expert in ploughing the local heavy clay with traction engine cable ploughs.
Neil Mitchell (June 2021)
An unusual pub, with an unusual name, often referred to as ‘the pub with no bar.’ Originally a beerhouse, it was granted a full licence in 1965. It was located in a dip off Church Hill and was the first of the row of cottages of timber framed construction with brick noggin, built circa 1700, and known as Harper Cottages. Entry to the pub was gained through what appeared to be the front door of the cottage, and stepping inside the potential customer would find themselves in what, to all intents and purposes, could have been the front room of the cottage. It had wooden benches around the walls and in winter an open fire – absolutely no sign of any bar. It was not unusual for strangers to open the front door and look in, then to apologise for entering what they clearly thought was a private house, and leave again. A few minutes after the bell attached to the front door had rung, the landlord would appear from a back room and take your order. He would then disappear back into the room down a couple of steps, where the beer was racked in barrels standing on a simple plank of wood. It was decanted by a barrel tap into glasses for delivery by tray back out to the customer. There was in fact another room off the front room, that was supposed to be the Lounge, but this door was never opened and until a skittles table was acquired, never used. It was easy looking in at the ‘’bar’’ area to imagine its former use as a ‘’lock up’’ or temporary cell. Local history records that the cottage which became the Public House was actually constructed as the village courthouse and lock up, but that when this use ceased it became the workhouse or poor house. Then, when the Ravensden Town and Poor Estate Charity took responsibility for the local poor, housing them in three charity cottages, it became a public house. The earliest granting of a beer licence to premises on his site appears to have been in 1786 but the first reference to the property as a recognised pub is 1800. As for that unusual name, there are four possible explanations. a) When the Bedford to Kimbolton road was being properly constructed and surfaced, workmen and local agricultural labourers used to enjoy a lunchtime drink in the house. At the end of the week when the previous weeks wages had been expended, it was apparently the custom of the landlord of the time to grant credit and for the beer to be ‘’put on the slate.’’ He was so confident that he would get his money the next week. However when he passed away and the new Landlord took over - he was less sympathetic and would not grant such credit. On remonstrating with him those wanting to continue the old practice were simply told ‘’ Oh well that was then but now I am in charge and the ‘Case Is Altered’. b) A second explanation is that the very first owners actually supported the cause lost in the civil war but won again at the restoration. Hence ‘the case (or cause) has altered.’ c) A third possibility is that it referred to the earlier use of the building as a court house and the ‘case’ was a legal one. d) Finally, that the name is simply a derivation of ‘’Casa Alta’ or the house on the hill, and that this was brought back to the village by survivors of the Peninsular War 1807 to 1814. If it offers any sort of clue, the original pub sign always showed a Judge in full robes and wig holding a quill pen and it was said that the face of the Judge was actually that of the grandfather of the last landlady. The Harper family appear to have taken on the cottages in 1911 after years of working on local farms as horse keepers and labourers. Perhaps the best known of them all was a Sam Harper (son of Samuel Harper the publican in 1911). Son Sam was an unpredictable character who was not averse to chasing cheeky local youngsters with his pig whip. Connie Peet (nee Harper) and her husband Dick were the last landlord and landlady they took over in 1965 and when they died this extraordinary pub was sadly delicensed and sold as a private cottage in 1998.
Trevor Stewart (December 2024)
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