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Home > Bedfordshire > Ridgmont > White Hart

White Hart

White Hart, Ridgmont

Date of photo: 2012

Picture source: Google Streetview


 
The White Hart was situated on the High Street and is now used as a private house, having closed in 1964.
 
It's 1827 valuation shows it as a freehold public house, occupied by Norman Francis, with a capital stable for five horses, garden and a small close of land containing about an acres; outgoings - land tax 9s.
 
A valuation of the premises was made under the 1925 Rating Valuation Act; the valuer found a brick and tile detached building, it comprised a smoke room ("nice"), kitchen, tap room and bar downstairs with three bedrooms above (with a note in brackets that this became two bedrooms and a bathroom). Outside the premises comprised a coachhouse, barn and washhouse and garage ("cobble floor, no pit"); it was on mains drainage with water from London & Devon Estates (now Bedford Settled Estates) and had a telephone. Takings were £92 per annum for sale of a barrel of beer a week and half a gallon of spirits a month, its principal problem was its competition as summed up ruthlessly by the valuer: "Ought to be much better but killed by personality of tenant at the Red Lion", the tenant at the White Hart was an "old Navy man with pension". The old navy man also owned a shop in the High Street which was run by a Miss Rogers, whom Kelly's Directory reveals to have been Grace Rogers, a greengrocer.
 
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