Holland Road Marlow Early History

 Holland Road was laid down late in 1901 by the workers of Mr Fossett of Slough. Earlier that year much of  the land that the early properties in the road would be built on had been bought bit by bit by speculator James Andrews Holland and in his honour it was decided by the Urban Council to name the new road Holland Road. (Often referred to as Holland's Rd early on.) The land was previously part of the "Quarrydale Estate", perhaps the grounds of the house Quarrydale which was by it though that does not look to long predate the Holland Road. 

James had no previous experience in property speculation. He would later state in court that his main former career was that of an employee of the Midland Railway. On the 1901 census he was the manager of a timber merchant in Ashford near Staines Middlesex and in 1881 he appears as a carpenter and joiner which seems at odds with his statement of being a Midland Railway employee for much of his career. Unless he was employed as a carpenter in some way by them ??? He did have some experience working as an assistant manager of a brickyard too. 

Regardless of his experience, thanks to loans from Mr Cripps of Marlow and Garner and Sons of Uxbridge he was able to begin building up Holland Road. You can understand why this area seemed a golden prospect to such a speculator. Holland Road was within walking distance of the station and the river yet would have still felt removed from the main body of Marlow. A peaceful but well connected semi rural idyll. James admitted he had only a small working capital and "few qualifications" but he was obviously able to win the confidence of his backers nevertheless. 

First in the new road came a bungalow with an attached artist's studio, then 2 cottages. These cost £729, 18 shillings and 6 pennies to erect on top of a purchase price for all the land of £567. These were followed by five more houses in a block for himself and two for his wife Sarah (or so he would later state) on more of the land. The couple lived in home called "The Maisonette" New Town/Quarrydale, possibly also in Holland Road.  (N.b there were two cottages known as no 1&2 The Maisonette, in New Town Rd proper around this time, which may be one of those meant.)  Unfortunately James had overreached himself financially and could not afford to continue to build on the rest of his land. He had no money left to continue his grand development scheme.

Though he had tenants for some of the built property this was not enough to keep him afloat and he was forced to try to sell the bungalow with studio, and 2 houses. These did not sell in two attempts and James filed for bankruptcy. There was some scepticism voiced in court that two of the properties allegedly built for his wife were genuinely not part of the bankrupt's possessions. He owed £510 to creditors at the time.

The mortgagees tried again to sell some of the property in 1906 and were seemingly successful at last. James and his wife moved away from the town. In 1911 he was a Building Works Manager boarding at Shottesdon, Shropshire. 

An early family to set up home in Holland Road was the Haddon family. In 1907 Richard Johnson Haddon (who may be the father of the family or his identically named son) appeared as a witness at the Old Bailey in London when Arthur Malyon of Leytonstone, Henry East of Dean Street (fruit and horse dealer), Frank Price of Dean Street and James Newell (of Marlow or Stokenchurch reports vary) were accused of a string of thefts in London and it's environs involving horses, wheeled vehicles and harnesses.

Some of the stolen property was sold in Marlow, some at Henley Fair and some elsewhere. Richard Johnson Haddon reported taking 4 horses to Henley Fair for East, including one of the allegedly stolen animals. He also believed he had seen another of the stolen animals in a field off Dean Street by the Bank of England pub. This field was one of two rented by East. 

The charges against Frank Price were dismissed by the courts at an early stage. Henry East was found not guilty and was welcomed home to Marlow by a crowd of 200 people who repaired to the Plough pub for a raucous celebration (on which more here) The rest of the accused were found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in jail. The court case contains various interesting points not relating to Holland Road but to Marlow in general and how the horse dealing trade operated here in the early 1900s.

It is also noticeable for the statement that using the "F word" as Henry East was quoted as doing was common in the town in 1907 (at least in Dean Street!). There is a link to a transcript of the Old Bailey trial in the Sources section below. The earlier hearings at lower court's were reported at great length in the South Bucks Standard.

Those giving evidence for the good character of East, included Francis Crawford Caffin who was a fruit customer of his and William Fisher the butcher of Market Square 

Two years earlier Richard Johnson Haddon Senior and Richard Johnson Haddon Junior had been in court at Marlow following an altercation with their Holland Road neighbour William Henry Lavell. It was alleged that a sickle had been thrown by Lavell at a dog owned by Haddon Junior and threats made against Haddon Junior himself. The judge accepted that he had not intended to harm the dog, only frighten it off and had been provoked by the dog taking one of his valuable chicks. He was thus asked to pay only half the costs of the case and Haddon Junior the rest. Lavell was bound over to keep the peace towards the Haddons.

 In 1914 William Lavell, still of Holland Road was sentenced to 4 months hard labour for arson at Wright's paper mills where he worked as a packer. Drunk thanks to a long drinking session at the Carrier's Arms in Wycombe Road (that and the Plough would be his nearest pubs from home), William had wanted to get revenge on the mill owners for exploiting and under paying certain female staff as he saw it. Women in his eyes could not stand up for themselves in such matters! He set fire to a door and put up barricades to hinder attempts at extinguishing the fire. Nobody was inside at the time. William was married to Ellen (nee Smith. M 1896) who on the previous census was described as a paper mill hand. This would have been at Wright's. It is not mentioned in the court case that Ellen was one of the women William thought was being mistreated but it may have been so. The couple's address in 1901 was "New Town" the district around Holland Road so they were already close to Holland Road. It is possible their home existed in the street prior to it being named or properly laid down as a road both of which occurred - officially speaking - several months after the census was taken. Development in Marlow was sometimes very haphazard, piecemeal and disorganized!

Written and researched by Charlotte Day.

NB Early residents often gave their address as "xx Holland Road, New Town, Marlow"  or just "New Town". Most of the houses were named, and these names often changed with each new resident..

For other posts about specific Marlow Roads, shops or farms see this index. All references to any individual on this blog can be found on the A-Z Person Indexes. Thousands of people are mentioned.

Sources:

https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?name=19070528

South Bucks Standard September 6th 1901 and 21st July 1905. Bucks Herald 27th June 1903 and June 6th 1914. Bucks Advertiser July 11th 1902. All British Library Archives via the BNA.

England and Wales Census 1911. National Archives, Kew. Census information remains Crown Copyright. 

"England and Wales Census, 1901," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X96C-M5W : 20 May 2019), James A Hollands, Ashford, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom; from "1901 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing Sunbury subdistrict, PRO RG 13, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey.

"England and Wales Census, 1881," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q27J-WWZG : 12 December 2017), James A Holland, Leicester St Margaret, Leicestershire, England; from "1881 England, Scotland and Wales Census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing p. 17, Piece/Folio 3158/106, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey; FHL microfilm 101,774,883.

"England and Wales Census, 1911," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X7VP-XTT : 22 July 2019), William Henry Lavell, Marlow, Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom; from "1911 England and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 14, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.

GRO marriage index.

1915 Marlow Directory and Almanack, Welbourne & Simpson, Marlow. 

1907 Marlow Guide, Marlow Printing Co. 

More Beer Sellers Than Bakers - Temperance In Marlow

  

If you have read our list of Marlow beer sellers and pubs, you will see that Marlow was quite well served when it came to places to buy an alcoholic drink! For some people this was a pleasant thing, but for others it was the root of a lot of Marlow's problems. This post is about Marlow's temperance campaigners and teetotalers and the somewhat up hill battle they faced. 

It was never going to be easy to sell total abstinence from alcohol in a town where many people were employed by a brewery. Temperance, moderating alcohol consumption short of giving it up altogether, seems to be the cause that progressed most consistently through time in Marlow, although some of the groups campaigning under this banner were actually asking people to take a pledge of teetotalism after all. This point irritated Thomas Owen Wethered of the brewery, and he exchanged many words, printed and in person, with the likes of the Church Of England Temperance Society about this. 

Although Dean Street is well remembered as a place well served by beer shops, ale houses and the like, it was West Street and Church Passage that had the highest concentration of alcohol sellers per square foot prior to about 1830. Marlow had a reputation for having a lot of licensed premises per population size even then. In 1830 the Reading Mercury noted that 10 new beer houses had recently opened in Marlow, taking advantage of a relaxation of certain conditions required for a licence. Three were refused a licence in 1839, but most carried on..

 

Is that a victualler at the back?

Back in the 1840's, the temperance cause in Marlow was said to be progressing "very rapidly". This may have been a little optimistic as the number of beer sellers actually increases after this time! In 1841 the existing mission room in Dean Street was set up for use as a coffee house and reading room. The idea was that working men would stride past the lure of the streets many beer sellers and instead take advantage of a subsidised cup of coffee. The reading room would be a pleasant place to browse a newspaper or religious book, and so gave the men somewhere to relax out of home that wasn't a pub.  

In this year, a temperance meeting was held in the mission room on both Christmas Day and a few days later. It was chaired by George Brangwin. The organisers said that a licensed victualer attended and was so awed by their arguments that he signed up as a financial subscriber to their society. Whether he also signed a pledge to give up alcohol himself they did not say, but perhaps it was taken as a given. Research has not yet turned up anyone giving up their licence at this time, who seems a candidate for this character. You would imagine the teetotallers would trumpet the news about such a significant convert later on, but perhaps the story got muddled in the re telling by the London United Temperance Association. 

Chin up, it's Chinnum! 

One person who definitely was not likely to sign a pledge then was Dean Street character "Chinnum". Local George Stevens, remembering his own life in 1840's Marlow, recalled  Chinnum's antics, although not his real name. I have subsequently found him to be Thomas Anderson of Dean Street.  Chinnum was frequently before the bench on charges related to being drunk and disorderly as well as poaching and brawling. The exasperated authorities decided to try a different sort of punishment on him. They told the Parish Constable to dust off the town stocks and give Chinnum a six hour stint in them. George thought our drunken friend was the last miscreant to be clapped up in this way (March 1845), although other reports suggest there was one more, Thomas Ellis in 1858.*** Regardless, the stocks had not been in regular use for some time and the novelty value of seeing a man put in them drew a crowd. Chinnum was sat on a stool in the Market Square with his ankles and wrists in the holes made for them. The constable secured Chinnum and then went off, perhaps aware the crowd was largely supportive of his captive. When he returned to release the man, a crowd was still present and Mr Chinnum was blind drunk. How could this have occured? Well Chinnum had many friends present and when he said he was a little dry, a group of Dean Street ladies popped to the Coach & Horses and bought out a quart of beer and a pipe for him to enjoy. They had to help him drink it as his arms were out of use, but there was no shortage of volunteers and more drinks followed with predictable results. Chinnum might sound a jolly character, but he had a distinctly violent side when in drink and even savagely attacked his own mother. You can read more about that here. He was incidentally charged with being drunk and disorderly again less than a year later. 

Rags to riches ?

A different kind of example was before those attending a public lecture in the Lecture Hall, St. Peter's Street in 1862. The smartly dressed and respectable looking John Plato of Chesham held before the audience a set of ragged clothes. These were the the very outfit he had worn when signing his abstinence pledge 22 years before. He said the turn around of his fortune began at this moment, his alcohol dependency being the reason for his earlier poverty. 

A few years later, a speaker from London came to Marlow to address a meeting advertised as addressing the issue of Suppression of Liquor Traffic. The meeting was chaired by the Congregational church minister James Mountain. The "exhaustive" speech was accompanied by a dizzying number of facts and figures supporting the benefits sobriety could bring. This lead to the group passing a resolution calling on the government to do more to restrict alcohol sales. 

Supply and demand

 The reports of the teetotalism campaigners success, or lack of it in Marlow ebbs and flows as the 19thc goes on. The Marlow Correspondent for the Maidenhead advertiser, commenting in 1884, thought temperance was a subject that dared not be mentioned in the City - a slang term for Dean Street inspired by the pub names The Bank Of England, The Mint and the Royal Exchange. He argued that Marlow was a thirsty community and the number of pubs could probably be successfully doubled in some parts of town! He does make a good point that all seemed to be doing a good enough trade to keep going despite plenty of competition but of course the aim of the "other side" was to reduce this demand to nil. 

To this end, more open air temperance meetings were held in places such as Spittal Square (Common Slough) and Quoiting Place (Quoiting Square). 

Questionable advice for domestic bliss

In the 1890's the Temperance cause seems to gather pace again in Marlow. In 1891 it was noted that the town contained around 50 places to buy alcohol which was more than twice as many as the total number of butchers, grocers and grocers premises combined. This was one alcohol seller per 30 adults. But there was also said to more abstainers than ever before. 

A meeting was organised by the non conformist places of worship as teetotalism was a cause long dear to their hearts. It was decided that none of their chapels would be big enough for the hoped for audience so the Lecture Room was hired. Many speakers came and some offered helpful hints as to how to convert others to the cause. Rev Messer, a visiting temperance advocate, suggested that woman should determine to die an old maid rather than marry a drinker. Others told the woman how important it was to "bridle their tongues", act meekly and make the home comfortable so as not to drive their husbands to drink. Advice for woman who had to try and waylay their husband on his way home on payday before he spent some of his earnings in a beershop was not forthcoming. At the end of the meeting it was decided to have a series of lectures in the town to promote signing the pledge with the overall aim of closing down every beer seller in town* 

A society is formed...again

Marlow had had a temperance society in 1862, if not before but presumably it faded away as a Marlow Temperance Society was formed again in 1892 with long standing campaigner Rev Tavender** of the Congregational church elected president. This was active mainly with the "non-conformist" places of worship, but there was also Marlow branches of the Church Of England's Abstinence Society and a Total Abstinence Society which usually met in the Wesleyan Sunday School room. In late Victorian times Marlow also had a Lodge of The Independent Order of Good Templars. This was a friendly society with temperance as a requisite for membership and failure in this regard forfeited all benefits. Weekly meetings were held in the  Congregational school room with entertainments on offer not just speeches. We should also mention the popular Band Of Hope, where young people signed a pledge to be life long abstainers, and also engaged in many other activities. 

In 1893 Tavender invited a temperance "van" that had been travelled around the company to make a stop in Marlow. It arrived in Quoiting Square and those travelling with it made speeches and gave out leaflets. Unfortunately it's arrival had been well advertised and a group of men were ready to make a disturbance that made it difficult to hear the speakers. 

Still, the advocates must have been happy when a Temperance Hotel opened up in the very centre of Marlow in 1895. It was on the corner of Institute Road and the High Street, in the premises just vacated by W B Langston's boot and shoe stores who would now just use their newer premises directly opposite. The hotel was fitted up with every modern apparatus for the preparation of tea, coffee and cocoa, and also had a grill room for those wanting something substantial whether guest or sober visitor. It closed a little over 2 years later, it's promoters and supporters "finding the venture a very unprofitable one". The same fate had befell the previous High Street Temperance hotel which closed in 1885. It was then under its second business owner in former West Wycombe chair maker Alex Hughes -  he went bankrupt after 14 months of slow trade. However the corner  premises seems to have had a later  resurrection in the Temperance line, also offering accomodation. I've not researched this further as it is out of our time focus. But I can say it's use in this incarnation does not seem to be continuous as it is absent from fairly exhaustive hotel and temperance related listings for a number of years around the First World War. 

The site of the Temperance Hotel, formerly original site of Langston's Boot and Shoe Warehouse. Later uses included a tea room and jewellers. Currently no 55, building bears date of 1878 on side. Image ©Colin Groves and used with permission. 

Last hurrah for the beer drinkers?

In 1907 John Debenham landlord of the Carrier's Arms in Wycombe Road, asked for his licence to be removed in favour of the magistrates granting him a new one for a yet to be built premises in New Town Road to serve the newly developed New Town area. He said he sold only 2 barrels of beer a week at the tiny Carrier's Arms. The proposed new pub was to have a frontage of 33ft onto the road and a depth of over 90ft. There were 53 inhabited buildings in New Town plus 2 laundries and 2 brick kilns. George's request was ultimately refused after petitions for and against were read. George Swadling, working at Mr Wellicome's brick kiln, said he was strongly in favour of a public house there as "brick making is thirsty work." Full marks for trying Mr Swadling!  

Changes in licencing laws did eventually reduce the number of pubs in Marlow. Some landlords found that even when they were happy with their income, the authorities could decide they were surplus to requirements and close them for good. Compensation was offered to both the brewery owner and the licencee in that case, but some of the amounts paid seem paltry when making up for a families loss of both home and livelihood.

 A plan in 1908 to place more restrictions on pubs (no women would be allowed to work in them, Sunday opening times reduced) and to reduce this closure compensation further drew a furious response in town. Petitions had been placed in the pubs and hotels against almost all previous licencing changes and the formation of a Marlow Licenced Victuallers Defence Association was muted in 1881. This time a well attended protest meeting was held. The upshot was a group of 300 Marlow people travelled on a special train to Paddington. There they unfurled a banner bearing the word Marlow and marched to Hyde Park to take place in a large scale procession and protest. In the end the proposed legislation failed but Marlow still lost many of her pubs to forced closures over the next few decades. 

*Between September 1873 and September 1874 36 people in the Great Marlow licencing district were convicted of drunkenness or crimes relating to that. 2 were women. All but two of the men were first time offenders. In addition 1 person was convicted of selling alcohol without a licence and 2 licensees were convicted of breaching their licence conditions in some way. This compares to 78 convictions related to drunkenness in Slough over the same period, 45 in High Wycombe, 35 in Chesham and 23 in Buckingham. Most people escaped an arrest if they did not insult the constable and followed his advice to go directly and quietly home. 

**Mrs Tavender was also a temperance campaigner. She belonged to, and often chaired meetings of, the Women's Temperance Society which usually met in non conformist places of worship. 

*** Thomas Ellis spent 6 hours in the stocks. Originally convicted of drunkenness and fined, he could not pay. A order was made to seize goods to the value of the fine plus costs, but he had nothing worth taking, hence the stocks. This was controversial in the town. 

The blog list of Marlow pubs of the past can be found here (over 100 of them!)

Biographical posts on Revd Tavender and Revd Mountain can be found here and  here.

More about the Langston's boot stores here

See the "Pub" tab on the drop down menu above for more information on specific premises or landlords. 

For other posts about everyday life in old Marlow see the index here

Researched and written by Kathryn Day. 

SOURCES

The Teetotaller, 1841. London United Temperance Association. (George Henderson, London)

Couling, Samuel, 1860. History of the Temperance Movement in Great Britain. (William Tweedie Publications)

Turner, Peter W. 1893. The Temperance Movement and it's Work - Vol 1-2. (Blackie and Sons Ltd, London)

Band of Hope Society, 3rd Edition 1895. What are Band of Hope Societies and how to form them (Band of Hope Library)

Band of Hope Records Vol 2-4, 1858, digitised by Google. 

Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons Vol 49, 1876. 

South Bucks Standard, 3 June 1885, 19 September & 19 December 1890, 29 March & 2 Nov 1895, copies from the British Library Archive accessed through the BNA. 

Reading Mercury -  22 Nov 1830 & Sept 21 1839, 11 September 1858 as above

Bucks Herald  11 September 1858, as above. 

South Bucks Free Press, 22 March & 3 August 1862 as above. 

Wethered, T O, 1885, Teetotalism and the Beer Trade. 

Bucks Herald 11 April 1885, as above. 

©MarlowAncestors. 

The Carrier's Arms and Star Of The Town, Wycombe Road, Great Marlow *updated June 2025*

Updated by Kathryn June 2025.

Historic landlord listing and history timeline: 

Licensed from 1848 with unknown name then. Was known as the  Star Of The Town in the 1860s, a name which *may* have been inspired by the launch of Marlow's Star of The Thames boat in 1864 - see here

1861 - ? Possibly Charles Belcher, carrier. Nephew of the Johnsons of the nearby Plough. Or is it one of the Judge family? 

[1865 - Star Of The Town - Mrs Judge]

[1867 - Star Of The Town - Henry Judge, who is fined for opening his beerhouse on a Sunday despite Mrs Judge's efforts to throw the incriminating pints down into the cellar and out of sight. ]

As the Carriers Arms: 

1870 - John & Mary Ann Palmer.  John's parents also called John & Mary Palmer lived with them. John the son had previously been coachman to Major Henry Court at Wargrave. John junior was described as a carrier to Wycombe in 1873. In 1870 a poor "tramp" Ann Russell stole a pair of scissors belonging to Mary Ann from the premises and was sent to prison for six weeks as a result. Ann Russell had used the scissors to pay for lodgings at the Bear in Chapel Street. In 1872 a travelling man was charged with obtaining food and beer from Mary Ann under false pretences. The same occured in 1873 when a supper of bacon, potatoes and bread cost 6d plus 2d for a pint of beer. 

1881 - John Palmer

1883 - John Palmer 

1887 - John Palmer's chickens stolen from the premises.

1888 - John Palmer, also a carrier assisted by his wife Mary Ann. This year Mary Ann refused to buy a box of cigars offered to her by a customer, rightly suspecting them to be stolen.

1889 -  H Palmer then Benjamin Hughes

1891 - George B Hughes.

1892 - GB Hughes transferred premises to Thomas Munday. G B Hughes heads to The Plough. See here. He is later at the Black Lion,Well End, Little Marlow See here. 

1893/4 - Thomas J Mundy

1895 - Alfred Sarney (see also the Black Horse)

1896 - Alfred Sarney to Mr Sawyer, then to W A Shepherd then to Thomas Richards and finally Edward John Briggs. Difficulties arose from finding proprietor that was acceptable long term licensee to authorities. Such a parade of temporary landlords is quite frequent in Marlow! 

1898 - Samuel Ware 2. John Foster

1899 -  Mr Foster transferred to John Debenham

1907 -  John Debenham *Read about John's thwarted plans for his pub's closure and for a replacement in a new location in this post here

1911 -Mrs Lily Debenham, then holdover to Richard George Brant (who is used by brewery often to take over premises for a short time), followed by  James Belcher, who had moved from Chairmaker's Arms Dean Street. See here

1912  - Firstly Richard George Brant then later that year Walter Goddard.

1912-21 Walter Goddard.

1915 Sgt Smith of the Carrier's Arms is serving in the Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry in Flanders. 

1928- ex farmer James Holmes originally from Pewsey, Wiltshire  took over. 

1932 -James Holmes died of pneumonia following an operation. His widow Ann(e) Holmes takes over. 

1934 - Ann Holmes to Alfred Ball

1935 - Alfred George Ball to Phillip Henry Hanks. 

1937 - Sidney Juggins 

1939 - April of that year. Margaret Juggins. Her husband was serving in the RAF at the time. As he was the one compensated for the forced closure of the pub later that year she looks to have been minding the pub for him while he was thus occupied. *Update - we have confirmed that the landlord from 1937 was Sidney Juggins*

Closed - 1939 / 1940 by authorities to reduce the number of drinking establishments in town. Last landlord Sidney Charles Juggins husband of the above Margaret. The Wethered's brewery did not oppose the forced closure as they said they had enough other premises near by. The old pub was leased for emergency housing in the 40s-50s by the Minister of Housing and Marlow Urban District Council. This ceased c1957 and the owner put it up for sale as a "lucrative" development opportunity. It was demolished late 1961 and Maple Court flats were erected on the site in 1962. 

Researched by Kathryn Day and Charlotte Day.

NOTES - Many Marlow landlords switched premises over time and their family members can often be found running other pubs locally too.  

Related Posts:

There are posts on this blog about individual families associated with certain pubs, as well as on individual pubs themselves so have a look at the Pub Related index here  & don't forget the Person Index for all mentions of someone on this blog. Find it on the top drop down menu. Thousands are listed. 

Posts about life in the neighbouring streets here

More beer sellers than bakers -Temperance in Marlow here

Lists of posts about everyday life in old Great Marlow here

SOURCES Include:

South Bucks Standard, 6 January 1893, 8 November 1895, 3  1896, Bucks Herald November 3rd 1888, each copy held at British Library archives, accessed via the BNA

1872 list of Beer Sellers, Old Bucks County Archives

Kelly's Post Office Directory 1883, 1907, 1911

Census 1881, transcription from microfilm by Charlotte Day. 

©MarlowAncestors