The Cock and Magpie

The Cock & Magpie

A hundred years ago our cottage was a small pub called “The Cock and Magpie”. Photos taken around the turn of the century show a rather plain sign outside a building which was then thatched with shutters and lead-paned windows. We don’t think it was built as a pub originally. For one thing it has no cellar and it seems unusual to have the bread oven in what was, in licensed days, the parlour. What seems to have happened is that it became a pub in response to the great increase in demand brought by the building of the railways through Helmdon. The large gangs of navvies employed would have needed somewhere to sleep and eat – and somewhere to drink.

Will Watson

It is reasonable to suppose it was to satisfy these needs that people like John Pratt or James Bull converted their attics into dormitories and their front rooms into beer parlours. The building of the Northampton and Banbury Junction Railway began in the 1860s, with the line opening completely in 1872. The Great Central Railway was built during the 1890s, finally opening for passengers in 1899. John Pratt is listed in local trade directories of 18854 – 76 as a “beer retailer” – he may well have been the first landlord of “The Cock and Magpie”. James Bull figures as the beer retailer at “The Cock and Magpie” in the 1880s and 1890s, with Morgan Carvil taking over from him in the early years of the twentieth century.

I’m afraid that when we moved in we destroyed one relic of the cottage’s public house days. Many of you will remember the rear extension, built of timber and corrugated iron. Apparently, the residents of Helmdon were so shocked by the rough ways and coarse language of the navies that this swear room” had to be built to accommodate them!

Perhaps when we have finished work on the cottage, we shall have time to research its history a little more – in the meantime, if you know any stories about “The Cock and Magpie”, we should be delighted to hear them – provided, of course, that you keep them clean – we don’t want to have to rebuild the “swear room”!

Richard & Joy Webb
(From Talkabout newsletter Spring 1987)