The Magpie was undoubtedly the smallest and most modest of Helmdon's Four Public Houses. It was originally known as the Cock and Magpie, and its name probably refers to the fact that cock fighting (an entertainment barbarous to modern eyes but commonplace in bygone days) took place there. The first record of a licence is1861 and it has associations with the navvies who were camped at Helmdon, hard at work on the viaduct of the Great Central Railway.

The Magpie closed in 1909, after an almost yearly change of landlords since the turn of the century. It obviously lost trade after the navvies left the area.