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Date of photo: c1950s
The Rose & Crown was situated on Church Lane.
We once owned the "Rose and Crown" in Kingston, Cambridge long after it ceased to be a pub. It closed in 1960 and was purchased by Mr and Mrs Crow (a local farming family) who converted and extended the building and named it "Tranquil". Mrs Crow later told us she chose the name because moving there meant she was finally getting some peace from her mother-in-law! At the time it was sold the pub stood on a plot of about 1.66 acres. After the death of her husband, Mrs Crow split the plot in two and constructed a bungalow on the new vacant plot and moved out of "Tranquil" taking the name with her to her new home next door. The "Rose and Crown" then became "Old Mead House" which seems like a rather whimsical imagining of the history of the pub: it was probably never the epitome of a cosy chocolate-box English country pub frequented by fol-de-rol rustics quaffing mead. Evidence suggests it was a rather basic village boozer. A door leading directly off Church Lane opened into a single bar room measuring about 4m by 6m. The loo was, of course, outside in a lean-to brick shed tacked onto the end of the main building. When we purchased the property years later we had to do some remedial work for damp terracotta tiles laid on bare earth in that room.On lifting the tiles we discovered a pile of broken clay tobacco pipe bowls and stems in one corner under the tiles. Manufacture of clay tobacco pipes all but ended by the end of the First World War so those fragments probably dated from around the late 19th/early 20th century. Our builders very thoughtfully threw these little pieces of history in their skip when we weren't looking. In its time the "Rose and Crown" occasionally served as a venue for meetings other than for drinking. I remember one documented instance of it being used to hold a coroner's inquest into the death by drowning of a young boy in the nearby village well. ( A small digression here: at some point the well was covered over (probably more due to the arrival of piped water in the 1950s than to prevent further accidents) and for many years countless users of the local bus shelter had no idea of what lay beneath their feet. In the late 1990s the bus shelter was removed and the well uncovered to reveal a beautifully constructed brick-lined shaft with fresh water still at the bottom but not much else of interest. As a millenium project a salvaged and working Victorian well-pump was installed over the well head and a rather handsome open-sided oak-framed well house erected over it). We no longer own the property and so don't have access to the deeds but I can recall very clearly some interesting covenants included by the brewery that sold it off. It was expressly forbidden for the purchasers and their successors to use the premises for the sale of beer and ice cream, this being so as to protect the business of the Red Lion, a pub in the neighbouring village of Toft owned by the same brewery. Under our ownership our only aim was to consume beer and ice cream and not to sell it so this was never a problem. But as the brewery later also disposed of the Red Lion which is now a Chinese restaurant presumably the current owners of Old Mead House are free to pursue a plan to re-open the Rose and Crown should they wish.
Anon (March 2024)
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Other Photos
Publican with dog, c1940s
Publican with customers, 1960
Date of picture: WWI