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Recording Buckinghamshire's historic public houses

PROJECT 2009-2 : STARTED MARCH 2009

AIM: To record the historic buildings occupied by present and former public houses in towns and villages throughout the county.

PROJECT TEAM 2009-2013: Julia Wise, Adrian Harford, Sue Fox, Ron Hindmarch, Jill Scott
COORDINATOR 2009-2013: Jill Scott

From the village ale house with its long sloping thatched roof to the town's tall half-timbered coaching inn, it is no cliché to say that Buckinghamshire has a wealth of historic public houses. Check out the old photographs in any local history book and you'll find them. Even the smallest hamlet had its beer house.

But nowhere have these pubs, for hundreds of years the heart of local life, been systematically recorded. Many have gone, converted into houses or demolished to make way for town-centre shops – and more are going every year. This project aimed to record these historic pubs - the buildings they occupy and something of their history - before it was too late.

The first step was to get the survey process right, experimenting first in Chesham, then in March 2009 Winslow and Weston Turville. If you're interested in how this was done, click here:
Sorting out the survey process.

So it was then time to widen the search...

With two surveys under its belt, the project team had now set up the methodology - the "how to do it" Guide – and defined the survey forms that could be used to survey historic pubs and their buildings across Buckinghamshire.

Four years later, by March 2013 seven surveys had been completed successfully, recording 124 historic pubs and former pubs across the county.

So why not make a survey of the pubs and former pubs in your parish?

Although the initial surveys ended in 2013 there is no reason why the Historic Pubs project should not continue. Others could easily pick up the baton. On our completed reports pages you will find results from towns and parishes in Buckinghamshire, so that you know what information you need to collect (it's not a lot).

Our Public Houses Survey Pack contains everything you need to guide your survey and record the information you collect. This includes a printable copy of The "how to do it" Guide and three forms: one that sets out the basic information to collect for each pub or former pub in your chosen parish, a second on which to gather a summary of all the pubs and former pubs in the parish, and a third to provide a ‘title page’ for your completed report.

Contact the project co-ordinator

Before you start please email the Project Co-ordinator so that we know which parish you plan to survey, and so you can get help and advice on how to get started – and perhaps find other people who would be interested in helping.

When you've done your survey, send your results to the Project Coordinator. We will then publish your results here on the BAS website and they will become part of the Historic Environment Record (HER) for Buckinghamshire.