Old Leake, Boston

White Hart Pub

This week I am in Old Leake, a small village just off the A52 on the way to nearby Wrangle. My first stop is to the White Hart, opposite the 12th Century parish church of St Mary.

The White Hart was built in the 19th Century and Thomas Leake ran it between 1856 and 1870 followed by George Dawson. It is a modest two-storey inn with a central front doorway and marginal border sashes to each floor, crowned with a saltbox roof. Inside, the pub retains some of its mid-20th Century alterations, such as the wall seating and bar counter. At the bar, I meet Sheila who has been serving pints at the White Hart for 45 years. Shelia is keen to talk about the pub’s charity work and links to the local community, as well as some of the changes to the pub in recent years, such as the loss of a single storey dining range and beer garden demolished to make way for new housing.

After a brief chat about Inns on the Edge, I make my way to the Bricklayer’s Arms, just up the road along the A52.

Bricklayers Arms Pub

The Bricklayer Arms has been serving locals and visitors to the area for the last 180 years. The building is loosely rectangular in plan with single-storey ranges on either side of the main two-storey Victorian house. The pub is situated on the ground floor with landlord accommodation upstairs. Above the entrance is a small wooden door canopy dating to the early 1920s, given by Mrs Bateman (of Bateman’s brewery) from her own house in Wainfleet. Before Batemans, the pub operated its own brewery and builders’ yard at the back of the premises (circa 1837-1899).

Bricklayers Arms Brewery

Bricklayers Arms Brewery was owned by the Horton family, who were bricklayers by trade hence the pub’s name. The brewery remained in existence until the beginning of the 20th Century when poor water supplies resulted in closure. Nearly all the brewery buildings have been demolished except for a small L-shaped building directly behind the pub, used to store raw materials (note the first-floor goods door) and a single brick range across the yard.

Inside, the pub’s staff are busy serving customers. Still, I manage to have a brief chat with Clare, who tells me that after the Horton family, the pub owner was William Bush before becoming a Bateman’s pub in the early part of the 20th Century.

Not your average regular

I am also shown a 1920s picture of an elephant outside the pub with landlord John Emmerson in the background. A little digging reveals the elephant was called Rosie, loaned to Skegness amusement park for the holiday season by a menagerie owner. (Why the animal visited the Bricklayers Arms is anyone’s guess). A few months after this photograph was taken, Rosie refused to be loaded on a train bound for Mexborough by her trainer and railway officials. Several nights and three attempts later, Rosie eventually departed but not before national newspapers picked up the story; The Scotsman ran with the headline: ‘Obstinate Elephant. Skegness Station Comedy.’