The Old Rose and Crown
The Rose and Crown was a very old pub in Penistone. An older, original Rose and Crown had a yard with stables for its coaching function as an important rest stop. Its location was adjacent to the later inn of the same name and would have completely blocked the current Shrewsbury Road entrance. It had a long run as a popular coaching inn, as a stopping-off place for the weekly Halifax to London coach. According to 'Times Remembered' (a 1990 publication by Penistone LHG), three Rose and Crowns had been on or near the same site. Given the antiquity of its name this must have been over a very long time.
The Rose and Crown sign had a combination rose, half red, half white, surmounted by a crown, which became the badge of the Tudors. This dates from the end of the War of the Roses (1485), when the victorious Duke of Lancaster (Red Rose) married Elizabeth of York (White Rose). The design shown here is of the actual sign which adorned this popular Penistone public house.
JN Dransfield notes that as the Rose and Crown and the Old Crown across the road had both been built of the same sort of brick, they were probably from around the same time, after a contested watercourse plan had appeared from 1749. The older building had an archway leading into the large inn yard with farm buildings with some stabling for coach horses. It was well-known throughout the kingdom in the coaching days, especially when George 'Old Rumbo' Brown was proprietor.
From JN Dransfield's 'History of Penistone' we can find an errata section at the back which adds some detail about the earlier Rose and Crown. The old Plan referred to here was about the contested water course.
The old Rose and Crown Inn pulled down in 1868, from its position being different to the premises shown on the old Plan on page 282, would appear to have been built since 1749, the date of that Plan. It was built of brick in a very substantial manner, and if it had only been re-roofed and re-floored would have been a very comfortable house. It fronted the street and adjoined on the north the property on the old plan shown as Mr. Perkins, on the south to a shop formerly occupied by Mr. Brettoner, then there came an archway into the inn yard, and above it two cottages formerly occupied by John Scholey and James Taylor. The inn yard was a large one, and round it were the inn and farm outbuildings. Probably being built of brick, as is also the Old Crown Inn, both inns were erected about the same time.
The Inn Keepers
We can piece together some keepers of the Rose and Crown during the 18th and 19th centuries. JN Dransfield remarks that the Rose and Crown landlords listed below were more than landlords of the inn, they also farmed a fair acreage of land belonging to their own landlords, the Shrewsbury Hospital Trust. There might be some gaps but these names appeared in JN Dransfield's 'History of Penistone' with supporting evidence from other sources:
In the churchyard, Joshua Shewabell's memorial stone leans against the church wall under the west window, right next to one of his successors, William Dagley. See Steve Lavender's 'Stories from the Stones V' section on Joshua Shewabell.
'Here was interred the Body of Joshua Shewabell of the Rose and Crown Inn, Peniston, who departed this Life the 5th day of April in the Year of our Lord 1786, aged 57 Years'
In a London Gazette notice of a meeting of creditors held there in 1812, William Dagley took over after George and Thomas Roebuck of Hunshelf had been declared bankrupt. JN Dransfield is not sure about the dates but had found advertisements which placed him there in 1814 and Edmund Smith in 1818. Dransfield says: 'Mr. William Dagley was in the early coaching days one of the landlords of the Rose & Crown Inn and for many years and until the coaches were superseded by railways, his son William, a dapper and obliging little man, was head waiter there.'
He continues: 'Another character belonging to the establishment was Johnson, the boots, who at the election of 1841, when Wortley and Denison defeated Milton and Morpeth, mounted Rumbo's stubborn jackass and paraded the main thoroughfares gorgeously arrayed in the Tory colours at the expense of Mr. Joseph Parkin Hague, the then master of Penistone Harriers, and throughout his triumphant ride distributed pills specially prepared for the occasion of powder blue and soap as an antidote, he said, to the Radical germ then appearing in the district.'
The Dagley memorial stone under the west window outside the church is right next to Joshua Shewabell's, with five Dagleys on the same stone:
'Here Lieth interred the Body of Martha Dagley, daughter of Martha and William Dagley, of the Rose and Crown Inn in Penistone ...' (d.1801, not yet six years old, also George an infant son, and wife Martha, d.1812, aged 48) ...
'Also the above-named William Dagley, who departed this life March 1st 1824, aged 68 years.' (And below that, his son William, d. 1853, aged 62)
According to the 1904 Penistone Almanack, the old Rose and Crown was 'Famous throughout the kingdom' and especially when Mr George Brown, commonly called 'Rumbo', afforded 'Capital accommodation to man and beast'. This was during the pre-railway coaching days when the Rose and Crown was an important stop on the Halifax run. Mr Brown had kept the Rose and Crown from 1823 to 1835. He was known far and wide as 'Mine host of the Rose and Crown of Penistone' and would later take over the Horns Tavern across the road (now the Balti House take-away).
Mr George 'Rumbo' Brown must certainly have been important to be buried in the church porch in a heavy stone coffin which had been made by John Thorpe, a local stone mason. Mr Brown was also dignified by a tablet mounted inside Penistone Church which proclaims:
'Sacred to the Memory of Mr. George Brown late of the Rose and Crown Inn in this Town, who departed this Life 19th July 1835. Aged 61 years'
The cost of the Brown monument in the church had been £36 9s 4d, a princely sum of money in those days. He had been a man of many talents. As well as being the Rose and Crown innkeeper, he was also a farmer and had developed the noted stone quarries of Green Moor. This provided thousands of tons of Yorkshire stone to all parts of the kingdom.
From 'Bygones of Penistone' by JW Penistone, published in a local newspaper on 18th June 1966, we can discover that Green Moor stone was shipped by the firm as far afield as London. Mr Brown's business partners had been Mr William Rusby and later Rusby's son Leonard. From 1822 to 1824, the firm had shipped no fewer than 123 cargoes of stone to London, starting their sea-borne journey by barge from Worsbrough Bridge. Penistone was on the map as a noted supplier of 'Penistone Flags' which were sandstone slabs used for paving and other building work. The stone quarries carried on their business under the name of Benjamin Booth and Sons.
In 1868, Just before the old inn was about to be demolished and rebuilt, Mr and Mrs William Holmes were presented with a tea and Coffee Service upon leaving the old R&C, presumably as retiring publicans (from 'Remarkable Occurrences'). We can learn from Huddersfield Exposed that George Stones was charged with serving liquor outside of prohibited hours during the Penistone Feast of Sunday 26th June 1887.
Incidentally, Penistone's streets were not properly named and numbered until 1881. On a plan dated 1749, High Street was marked as 'Town Street' but it was generally called 'The Street' or 'Penistone Street'. What we now call Market Street (extending up to Gregg's) might have been better named as 'High Street', as the actual High Street has fewer shops and leads out of the main shopping area to the Library and beyond.
Some sources:
'A History of Penistone' by JN Dransfield, 'Huddersfield Exposed' and 'Remarkable Occurrences' and a notice of auction in the London Gazette of 1762 which agrees with JN Dransfield that Robert Walker had at one time kept the old inn. the 1871 census gives us a few more names. For Kevin Neill's excellent and detailed study of the old Rose and Crown, please visit Penistone Archive's R & C 1749 to 1868 page.
The Later R & C
According to JND the earlier building would have made 'a very comfortable house' if it had been re-floored and re-roofed, which might be a clue about why it was pulled down in 1868. The 'new' Rose and Crown was built in 1869 by Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury, costing £1,600 excluding fittings and furniture. It was on an adjacent plot to the old one. By that time, railways had arrived and coaching was now in decline. One wonders if this might have been a factor in the rebuild, as there might have been less need of stabling for coach horses, making more land available for building.
The new Inn was described as a "Beautiful building" lit by gas lamps in chandeliers. However, gas had its risks. The 'Commercial Room' was badly damaged by a nasty gas explosion at one time. A servant girl carrying a lit candle went into the commercial room in the morning, trying to find a dog, when the explosion took out a large window which landed in the street. The girl's hair was burnt off and a door and some furniture were badly damaged. The innkeeper Joseph Byrom had accidentally left a gas tap on and closed the door the night before the explosion happened.
Around the turn of the last century, The Rose and Crown was run by a widow, Mrs Ann Bradley. Tom Bradley had a pub in Barnsley and her son kept the Old Crown before leaving for Buxton. Stonemason and builder Mr Harry Turner continued with his business as he took over from Mrs Bradley. He previously kept the Horns Inn.
There are some gaps in the 'new' R&C story, at least as discovered by yours truly, although a more careful search of Almanacks might yield some more names. It is likely that Penistone local history group can fill in the gaps. The narrow Church Street had been the main thoroughfare and would continue so for many years. The position of the new Rose and Crown left room for access to Shrewsbury Road, which appears on old maps.
With the old R&C demolished, New Road was built on Hospital ('Proctor Land'), later to be called Shrewsbury Road. Around the turn of the last century, Shrewsbury Road was called 'New Road.' This might need looking into further but Shrewsbury Road was likely to have been just an access lane until around 1913 when the Carnegie Library was built. A condition laid down for the Carnegie Library and the Town Hall (etc.) to be built was that Shrewsbury Road be adopted by the Parish Council. This suggested that Shrewsbury Road was not a good highway at the time. An iron gate used to be across the top of the new road and a wooden fish and wooden fish and chip shop where the three steps lead into the churchyard.
Over the years, the outward appearance of the inn would have stayed much the same, except for what would have been the usual dark stonework from soot and pollution which all stone buildings had at the time, including the church. The trend for most public houses from perhaps the 1970s was to become 'open plan', with the removal of doors and interior walls, and the Rose and Crown followed this trend while keeping a small 'snug' room at the front of the building.
In recent times, it changed hands several times. Marianne ('Maz') had a successful run with a very popular venue and a weekend disco. It was taken over by 'Simon from Sheffield', a qualified chef. He provided some very good and popular meals but there until a rapid change of hands in December 2009. It settled down under new management early in 2010 but started opening later than before and the food trade declined. The doors might still be locked at 1pm on a Sunday when the other pubs had already been open for a while and doing a roaring trade. Except for 'Bed and Breakfast' guests, food eventually ended at a time when both the Spread Eagle and the Old Crown had been providing food.
2008 Pictures
In May 2008 the Rose and Crown had a major refurbishment. It was a good effort too and made it into a very comfortable place to relax and chat. It had been a popular choice for watching football on TV and could easily be packed out for big matches. It was often very lively in the evenings but trade was to gradually drop off.
The Shrewsbury road door was made smaller and a patio door fitted in the lounge area, for easy access to the beer garden (and smokers' corner). It looks much less cluttered now. Carpets were replaced throughout and the part of the floor near Market Street door was tiled. Walls were re-painted, a new TV appeared on the wall by the pool table, new picture frames went up and new tables and chairs arrived to complete the picture. It had an extended beer garden to catch the sun, a smoker's corner and a good car park.
From the Market street entrance, the first picture (top left, below) shows the snug, a small quiet side room suitable for rendezvous of various kinds, or a kind of snogging corner. From near the Market Street door, there was dance area and fancy jukebox looking like Blackpool Illuminations. There was also pool table and TV nearby. The view of one of the three sides of the bar area ("Does my bum look big in this?") is again from near the Market Street door.
The spacious lounge area (as I call it anyway) was close to the car park/beer garden door. The door in the darker corner of the right picture went to the 'Gents' and, in the below-left picture, the door went to a kitchen. The last two are of the beer garden and the smokers' gazebo.
The End of an Era
This little piece of Penistone history is now lost to us as a public house. The pub sadly closed down and its fixtures and fittings were removed. In April 2011, planning permission was submitted for a change of use from a public house into an office block. By June, the builders were in there doing their work and fitting new interior walls to create new rooms.
Dransfield's solicitors moved in soon afterwards from their very old home next to HBSC and Robinson's News. The name quickly changed to 'Pennine Law' and the business continued as solicitors.
See the Old Inns and Public Houses history page for other current and demised hostelries of Penistone and district.
Groucho Marx: 'I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.'