Pub – Hare and Hounds, Simmondley

Location: High Lane, Simmondley

Opened: 1789

The Hare and Hounds is still open today.

Text from ‘History in a Pint Pot’ by David Field. Published by Glossop & District Historical Society in May 1999.

Built in 1784 according to the date stone and with a lease dating from 1st October 1784, the letters on the datestone B over G & P (George and Peggy Booth).

In 1789 a George Booth of Simmondley signed his first alehouse recognizance. After his death in 1820 his widow Peggy took over. In his will George left everything to his wife Peggy and also stated that “His son Jesse Booth should not reside in the house with Peggy and that there was a certain door which opens off the kitchen part of the house in which I live into a weaving shop now in the possession of my son Jesse Booth. I direct my executors to wall this up as soon as possible after my death and that he shall have another door opened into the said shop from the outside where it will be most convenient”.

This could be the walled up doorway at the front of the Hare and Hounds to the right of the present door.

George’s will also stated that on his wife’s death the house and all his chattels should be sold and the money divided between his four sons and two daughters. After Peggy’s death George’s executors his son Abraham and neighbour Joseph Bennett re-applied for an alehouse licence in 1834 but were refused as they did not live on the premises, the licence probably lapsed at this time, the pub did not have a name and was referred to as Board.

It may have been about this time that Moses Dewsnap who had married a Mary Booth took over and ran it as a beerhouse which it was in 1837 when he unsuccessfully applied for an alehouse licence, in a Pigot directory for 1841 he was listed as a beer retailer. Moses remained licensee until his death in 1859 when his younger son Samuel took over, he was also unsuccessful when he applied for an alehouse licence in 1869 and 1871. Samuel will be best remembered for his famous trail dog Mounter which he obtained in 1879 when it was six weeks old, the dog won fifty races before it was four years old and caused a poem of fifteen verses to be written in his honour. Races were no doubt held from the pub and it was probably at this time that the pub was christened the Hare and Hounds.

When Samuel died in 1904 aged 69 he had been licensee for 45 years, George Dewsnap then became licensee and owner taking out a 21 year lease. In 1910 it was unsuccessfully referred for compensation on the grounds that its annual value was not of the amount required by the 1910 Consolidation Act.

A year later the Dewsnap era finished after over 70 years when Smith Thornton from the Cotton Tree, Compstall took over as licensee and owner.

In 1921 John James Tinker from the Mason’s Arms Hadfield took over as licensee with his wife Jessie Mary becoming owner taking out a 999 year lease which also included a bowling green, this was where the present car park is now and ceased after the war. Various licensees followed, the Tinkers each buying the pub until John Robert Canavan became licensee in 1935.

Canavan remained owner until 1944 when he sold the pub to Joshua Tetley for £3000, possibly he had heard that the North East Cheshire Regional Planning Committee were looking at widening the road through the village which would have involved demolishing the pub if it had gone ahead.

Tetley’s Brewery obtained a Full Licence in 1948, 111 years after Moses Dewsnap’s first attempt. Douglas Henshall a former Glossop Policeman was licensee from 1953 to 1969 during which time in 1960 Tetley’s merged with Walker Cain Ltd. of Warrington to form Tetley Walker Ltd. and a year later merged with Ind Coope and Ansells to form Allied Breweries. They were then the second largest beer producer in Britain with 8000 pubs as well, the pub then traded under the Ansell Brewery sign before returning as Tetley’s in 1984.