Remembering The Swan - Watford's oldest pub that lasted 400 years

The Swan Inn was originally on the east side of Lower High Street, above the old mill that caught fire in December 1924.

It was standing in the reign of King Henry VIII, when it was owned by the Heydon family of The Grove.

According to late local historian and author Kenneth Jones, Bernard Carter of London was an owner of The Swan Inn in the 16th century, whilst others in the 16th and 17th centuries were shoe maker John Lynolls, joiner Matthew Hoare and chandler Jeremy King, all of whom were from Watford.

There are references to The Swan Inn in 1635 in Branch Johnson’s Inns of Hertfordshire and, in the same context, Watford’s first brewer, John Day in 1619. In those days, many inns were brewing their own beer.

Later in the 17th century, The Swan Inn was co-purchased by Sylvester Chilcott and his sister.

She was someone whose name was to become synonymous with early education in Watford: the widowed Elizabeth Fuller, later Dame. In 1704, she paid for the building of Mrs.

Fuller’s Free School in a corner of St. Mary’s Churchyard. Four years later, she established trustees.

Dame Elizabeth lived in Watford Place, the still resplendent Grade II building in King Street, and also owned land in Sarratt and Creek in Northamptonshire.

Watford Place and side of old church hall, May 1979 (Image: Lesley Dunlop)

Utilising her annual rent charges, she endowed the school house with £24 a year (today worth £4.7 million annually), which in later years became Watford Boys' and Girls' Grammar Schools.

Nineteenth century Watford historian Henry Willams tells us of an ‘annuity or rent charge of £4 per annum, issuing out of The Swan Inn’ for Mrs. Fuller’s Free School.

The Swan, 216 Lower High Street, May 1979. Note the pitch roof line of demolished no. 214 (Image: Lesley Dunlop)

By 1775, The Swan Inn was under the ownership of Thomas Whitfield, a descendant of Dame Elizabeth Fuller's niece. Through her he inherited the inn, as well as Dame Elizabeth’s former home, Watford Place.

Around 1800, the medieval building on the east side of Lower High Street that had housed The Swan Inn for three centuries closed and was demolished.

The second location of The Swan public house, as it became known, was at no. 214, on the west side of Lower High Street.

Behind the 16th century timber-framed lathe and plaster building were two earlier timber-framed rearward wings.

One was twin-gabled and three-storeyed, whilst the other was two-storeyed. Set flush with other properties lining Lower High Street, it was near Fox Alley that once led to Watford Fields.

If you stand outside Watford Fire Station, it was across the road and diagonally to your right.

The Swan, 216 Lower High Street, 1970s (Image: K.R. Jones)

In the 1970s, a member of the family that had owned the brewery at The Swan Inn before Sedgwick’s took ownership sent Kenneth Jones an extract of Elizabeth Whittingstall’s will, c1824.

She bequeathed to Edmund Fearnley of Langleybury – who had inherited the brewery under her brother George’s will in 1822 – ‘All that freehold premises etc. adjoining the Brewhouse Yard (late The Swan Public House) situated in Watford’.

In addition, she left him three cottages and premises behind The Swan that had previously been known by the sign The Hole in the Wall.

In early 1959, demolition sledgehammers descended once again and The Swan's 400-year-old building at no. 214 Lower High Street was consigned to rubble.

But the outline of its pitch roof on the adjacent property remained evident for several decades afterwards; an emotive reminder of another historic building that could and should have been left standing.

The final home of The Swan was adjacent to the south side of its predecessor at 216 Lower High Street.

A new build, it was a plain rectangular red brick building set back from the road to allow parking in the front. It carried on business as The Swan for a few more decades.

Despite the once high concentration of public houses in Lower High Street, many thrived.

Well, they thrived until early in the latter half of the 20th century. It was then that the bells tolled.

The powers-of-the-day began to demand "time gentlemen please" or, in realistic terms, a sacrificial slaughtering of other Lower High Street public houses.

Changes in drinking habits and independent brewery take-overs such as Benskins and Taylor Walker by Ind Coope had reduced competition, which led to a slimming down of assets.

The sheer numbers of public houses located in historic buildings that were wiped off the landscape in Lower High Street in particular took some beating. It was pure and utter dereliction.

After The Swan finally called time, the Wag & Bone Bar replaced it in 1993. The bar did not survive many years, neither did the building.

The extended rebuilt site (nos. 216-242) houses Gilbran (Watford) Ltd. Even the outline of the pitch roof of no. 214, the last reminder of the Swan’s historic building, has now been removed.

Many other public houses in Watford, similarly consigned to the local history books, have tales to tell.

But don't forget The Swan. It was by far the longest serving public house in Watford.

Lesley Dunlop

Lesley is the daughter of the late Ted Parrish, a well-known local historian and documentary filmmaker. He wrote 96 nostalgic articles for the Evening Post-Echo in 1982-83 which have since been published in Echoes of Old Watford, Bushey & Oxhey, available at www.pastdayspublishing.com and Bushey Museum.

Lesley is currently working on Two Lives, Two World Wars, a companion volume that explores her father’s and grandfather’s lives and war experiences, in which Watford, Bushey and Oxhey’s history will take to the stage once again.