The White Horse wasn't a pub but a Beer House - an ordinary house selling homemade beer through the window or over the doorway. As time passed, it would allow people to enter the house, not just to buy beer but to also consume it on the premises, which gave rise to the word 'Public House' and the origin of pubs today.

We know it was called the White Horse in the 1850s, but we don't know when it ceased trading; the building itself survived until the 1960s. It may at one time have been called The Crown.

The building has long since been demolished, making way for the road widening scheme that permanently changed the way North Street looked.

It took me a little while to find a way without using an old map to give a feeling of its position, but much had changed. However, I found this picture taken where Chapel Road met North Street, before that section of North Street became an extension of Chapel Road.

In the large picture, on the extreme right in the distance, you can make out a building with some type of archway in the middle. The corresponding picture opposite captures this building in more detail. It's at the junction of the two roads. the woman on the bicycle is heading south down Chapel Road.

Time Line

A little bit more

1851 - 1860 Henry West (Brewer & beer Shop Keeper)