Page 47 - Froghall Drive Our Story

Public houses, inns, beer houses and breweries of

Wokingham – 1901

Chris French, May 2020

Terminology

A public house (pub) is an establishment where alcoholic drinks may be served under licence for
consumption on the premises.

An inn is traditionally a building where travellers can seek lodging and, usually, food and drink. Inns

are typically located in the country or along a highway.

The distinction of a tavern from an inn, bar or pub varies by location, in some places being identical

and in others being distinguished by traditions or by legal licence. In 16th century England, a tavern
was distinguished from a public alehouse by dint of being run as a private enterprise, where

drinkers were "guests" rather than members of the public. By 1900 the word tavern had developed
an archaic flavour in Britain, the usual term being public house.

A History

On this page are the main locations in Wokingham known in 1901 to be concerned with the

consumption of beer – alehouses, taverns, public houses and hotels. Where it has been possible to
obtain information and photographs of the building in 1901 these have been given: where the

building still exists today, a description and photograph of it in 2011 are also given, as a

comparison.

Background

A group from Oxford University produced a document entitled 'An Account of Early Victorian

Wokingham – Town and Parish' in 1984, based on data from the 1851 Census. The Wokingham U3A

Local History Group decided to produce a follow-up document (Late Victorian Wokingham), based
on the 1901 Census, following fairly closely the format of the original document and covering the

situation 50 years on. I chose to take on the chapter entitled 'Inns, Alehouses and the Drink Trade'.

In the original document, this topic took only two pages. As a result of my particular interest in

photography, I decided as a parallel activity to expand the topic and produce this document –
gathering what I could in the way of photographic data from around 1900, and supplementing this

with a comparative photograph of the building (or location) as it is today.