The Westbere Butts

 

When someday I finally make the trip to England, I will have to go on the ultimate pub crawl. Members of my family have been associated with any number of pubs around England—as my research progresses, the list only keeps growing. There is the Creeksea Ferry Inn, which I detailed in my very first blog post, and which, alas, is now only a vacant building. And it isn’t the same building my great-grandparents would have known, anyway. There are also other pubs, with names like the Railway Hotel, the Chelmer Brig, and the Round House, some still in business under the same or different names. But one pub had the best name of all.

It was called the Westbere Butts.


Say it out loud. It’s fun.

The origin of the name is likely more prosaic than it sounds. It was located in the village of Westbere, Kent, just outside my ancestral village of Sturry. Thus the first part of the name. A butt is a name for a cask which may hold ale. This, I suspect, explains the second part of the name. Alternately, butt can refer to an archery range, and there are a number of places in England with names that refer to Medieval archery grounds. I have found no indication that Westbere Butts is one of those places, but then again, neither have I found anything to eliminate that possibility.

Grolltech, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I have found the Westbere Butts, in Kent, more difficult to research than those pubs located in Essex, so many facts remain missing at this time. Some of those missing facts pertain to dates. Usually I can find newspaper accounts of the precise dates that public house licenses were transferred from one publican to the next, but that has not been possible in this case, at least before the twentieth century. Nor can I ascertain the reason for this difficulty, as license transfers seem to have been published as regularly in Kent as they were in Essex.

However, I can state with certainty that Robert Gurney, a brother of my 4great-grandmother Mary Gurney, appeared in both the Kentish Weekly Post or Canterbury Journal of 20 Feb 1810 and the Kentish Gazette of 23 Feb 1810 with a concise marriage announcement referring to him as “Mr. – Gurney, of Westbeer Butts.” Assuming that Westbere Butts was the name of the pub only, this establishes that it was in operation by 1810. However, it could conceivably refer to the area, implying nothing about the alehouse.

There is more definite evidence in the 1838 directory. Robert Gurney can be found in the lists of both “Gentry and Retired Persons” and “Retailers of Beer” with the address of Westbere Butts, Sturry. That “Retailers of Beer” listing is a much stronger indication of a pub on site.

It is still not proof.

As late as 1881, an article appeared in the Kentish Gazette discussing a desired change of license for a beer retailer in Westbere. The house was not named, but was in the tenancy of a Mr. Ede, who already held an off-license. He was requesting that it be changed to an on-license, and the article colorfully describes the difference between the two:

The granting of an on licence would be a great boon to the neighbourhood as at present people had to stand out in the roads when they wanted a glass of ale and other refreshment that the house afforded. The Bench were asked to give permission for beer to be consumed on the premises as this drinking in the street must necessarily be more or less a nuisance.

So it is possible that the Westbere Butts had been in a similar situation. It could have been permitted to retail beer, but not allowed to serve the beer in-house. Therefore, it might not have been a proper pub. 

"Sporting Intelligence: Hunting Appointments: Hariers," Morning Herald, 4 Mar 1854, p. 7, col. 5; digital images, British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 21 June 2022), Image public domain.

We do know that it become a pub at some point, though, and that point had to be prior to March of 1854 when the Morning Herald’s lists of sporting events included the “Westbere Butts Public-house” as one of the locations. But what of my family connection?

Robert Gurney passed away in 1848, and his son William seems to have taken up the mantle of beer selling, although not immediately. In the 1851 census William was apparently an ordinary farmer residing in Sturry. It was not until the 1861 census that he was residing at the “Butts Inn” in Westbere, and his occupation given as “Innkeeper + Farmer.” In 1871, he and his family were still at the Butts Inn, but William’s occupation was given merely as “Farmer.” In my research experience, innkeeping often included being the proprietor of a public house, and any premises ending in the word “Inn” tended to be pubs. We do know that the Westbere Butts was considered a pub by this point, so it can be reasonably assumed that William Gurney was the proprietor.

By the 1881 census, though, he had relocated to a place—still in the village of Westbere—known as Walnut Tree Farm. This was apparently an actual farm, as he was reported to be a farmer of 60 acres, who employed one man and two boys. The farm has proven even more difficult to research than the pub, but one website, “Hersden History,” claims that it is “now the sewage farm.” Somehow I prefer the older name.

After the reign of the Gurneys, the Westbere Butts went on to be operated by a series of other publicans, none of them, as far as I have yet discovered, related to me. As the nineteenth century turned into the twentieth, license transfers for the pub began to make their way into the newspapers. In 1903, the license was transferred from Mrs. Emma Bentley to Frederick Luckhurst, and in 1904 the license was renewed. Presumably the license was transferred a few more times before 1936, but those transfers, like those of the earlier century, seem to have disappeared into the ether. The last notice I have been able to find has been of the temporary transfer from Ambrose V. L. Hogbin to Michael J. Lynch in 1936.

Eventually, the Westbere Butts was converted into an Indian restaurant called Spice Master, and then the Mortar and Pestle, before eventually being abandoned. Last year plans were made for its demolition, and, according to a rejoicing comment on Facebook, it has since been demolished. Sadly, the former Westbere Butts with its amusing name will not be able to be included in my prospective genealogical pub crawl. 

Mortar & Pestle (formerly Westbere Butts), Island Road, photo taken 18 July 2021
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © John Baker - geograph.org.uk/p/6937443

Sources:

1851 census of England, Kent, Sturry, folio 155, page 4, household of William Gurney; digital images, Ancestry.com Operations Inc, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 19 Jun 2022); citing PRO HO 107/1625.

1861 census of England, Kent, Sturry, folio 8, page 9, household of William Gurney; digital images, Ancestry.com Operations Inc, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 19 Jun 2022); citing PRO RG 9/522.

1871 census of England, Kent, Sturry, folio 8, page 8, household of William Gurney; digital images, Ancestry.com Operations Inc, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 19 Jun 2022); citing PRO RG 10/971.

1881 census of England, Kent, civil parish of Westbere, village of Westbere, rural sanitary district of Blean, folio 42, page 6, schedule no. 30, household of William Gurney; digital images, Ancestry.com Operations Inc, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 Jun 2022); citing PRO RG 11/961.

“Adjourned Licensing Meeting St. Augustine’s Division,” Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald, 14 Mar 1936, p. 10, col. 2, digital images, British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk: accessed 23 Oct 2021), Image © Reach PLC. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

Eason, Baldrick. 2022. “On a trip to Hersden yesterday, I was very pleased to see that the old Westbere Butts/Spice Lounge has finally been demolished.” [Post to Canterbury ‘grot-spots’ group]. Facebook. May 22, 2022. https://m.facebook.com/groups/1497870623854226/permalink/2799265447048064/?m_entstream_source=group

Llewellyn, Ross. “Hersden History.” Hersden Community Centre (http://hersdencommunitycentre.co.uk/hersden-history/ : accessed 23 June 2022).

"Married," Kentish Weekly Post or Canterbury Journal, 20 Feb 1810, p. 4, col. 5; digital images, British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 23 Oct 2021), Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

"Married," Kentish Gazette, 23 Feb 1810, p. 4, col. 5; digital images, British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 23 Oct 2021), Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

"Plan to bulldoze Spice Master Indian restaurant in Canterbury and build 10 homes approved," 24 Apr 2021, Kent Online (https://www.kentonline.co.uk : accessed 5 Nov 2021).

"Sporting Intelligence: Hunting Appointments: Hariers," Morning Herald, 4 Mar 1854, p. 7, col. 5; digital images, British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 21 June 2022), Image public domain.

Stapleton & Co., Stapleton & Co.’s Topographical History and Directory of Canterbury, Faversham, Herne-Bay, Sittingbourne, Whitstable, Boughton, Bridge, Fordwich, Greenstreet, Herne-Street, Milton, Ospringe, Sturry, Westbere... (1838), 35-36; digital images, Internet Archive (archive.org : accessed 23 Oct 2021).

"St. Augustine’s Petty Sessions," Kentish Gazette, 6 Sept 1881, p. 3, col. 2; digital images, British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 20 Jun 2022), Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

“St. Augustine’s Petty Sessions: Licensing Business,” Canterbury Journal, Kentish Times and Farmers' Gazette, 12 Sept 1903, p. 7, col. 3, digital images, British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk: accessed 23 Oct 2021), Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

“St. Augustine’s Licensing Sessions: Westbere Butts,” Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald, 6 Feb 1904, p. 7, col. 5, digital images, British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk: accessed 23 Oct 2021), Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

St. Nicholas (Sturry, Kent, England), Kent, Canterbury Archdeaconry Parish Registers Browse, 1538-1913, "Burials 1814-1861," record for Robert Gurney's 1848 burial, p. 70, no. 559, image #39 of 60; digital images, FindMyPast (www.findmypast.com : accessed 26 Jan 2022).