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Helmdon Trail - The Cross
 
The Old Cross
The Old Cross,
Cross Lane
Almost certainly the oldest alehouse of the original Four Public Houses having taken its name from the Cross family who provided the landlords for much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

We have specific records informing us that the Cross was used as a meeting place, for example, for the churchwardens to meet to discuss church affairs and impose summary justice, to lodge travellers and to refresh those who had been present at "Processioning" or Beating the Bounds.

The Cross first began its life in a building in the middle of the village and then migrated to Cross Lane. Thomas Hinton, whose father Matthew, Yeoman, lived at the Manor House, was the first recorded alehouse keeper in 1793. Always a free house, it closed its doors in 1914.

The Old Cross
Impressive architecture is a
feature of The Old Cross

The earliest deeds of sale that have been found are dated 16 May 1925 when the property was sold by Eliza Ellen Garrod, wife of the late Henry Garrod (signalman) formerly Eliza Wilcox, to Mabel Elizabeth Brown (spinster). The property is described as "formerly known as Cross Inn, formerly in the occupation of E. M. Campion and recently of Mrs J Kelcher".

The property was sold again in 1937 as Brookland View. It was sold again in 1942, 1943, 1945 and 1950 as Brookfields. In 1969 the name was changed again and it was sold as The Old Cross, the name by which the property in Cross Lane is known to this day.


In 1943, to resolve a dispute over right of way at the back of the property, Frank Watson who had lived at the adjoining property of Wigson's farm for 30 years, speaks of "the track being used for bringing supplies to "The Cross Inn" and had been used with and without horses, carriages, carts, motor cars and other vehicles".

[An article written by Tim and Dawn Law, who bought the Old Cross in 1970 appeared in the Helmdon Talkabout in Spring 1994 and was later reproduced in Aspects Of Helmdon No. 4.]

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