The Cross Keys - History

		The Cross Keys in July 1940, picture courtesy of Reg Hull now resident in New Zealand. Note the porch at the front had not yet been built. Click on the image for a large scale version.
The Cross Keys Beer Garden is built atop the embankment built by the Saxons to protect the ancient burgh of Wallingford. This is the sign on the Kinecroft opposite the pub - the embankment surrounds the Kinecroft on 3 sides and is well worth a visit. Traces of the embankment can be seen on the nearby Bullcroft too.

History of The Cross Keys

The Cross Keys is a Grade 2 listed building thought to have been built in the late 17th Century, though the rear extensions are 19th century. There had been an earlier building in approximately the same position as far back as 1548, because the Survey of this date lists a “shepehouse”, and a Survey of 1606 refers to a tenement “without the West Gate of late built.”

The earliest reference so far found to it being a public house is in 1769, in the Will of William Fludger, Tanner, when it was occupied by a William Brooker. When the Alehouse Licence Register began in 1784, only the licensees, not the properties, were named, but a Richard Brooker was one of them, and it is reasonable to assume that he occupied the Cross Keys. He was succeeded in 1785 by John Hedges, who was still there when property names were added in 1789, and remained there until 1828.

By 1847 the freehold had passed to a member of the Morrell family, and later to Charles Greenwood, and by 1905 had come into the possession of R.C.Lybbe Powys Lybbe.

It was not until a new and more formal Licensing Register began in 1872 that the names of controlling brewers were mentioned, as well as the licensees, and it was not until 1895 that the name of Edward Wells appeared, although we know from another source that the Cross Keys had been leased for 21 years from September 1876.

In 1905 Hall's Oxford Brewery took over the tenancy, and in the same year Rudolph Bosley became the licensee. Bosley remained as licensee until 1926, but he had already managed to buy the freehold from R. C. Lybbe Powys Lybbe in 1916. He eventually sold to Brakspears in 1928. Bosley is known to have paid the Corporation to allow him to pasture cattle on the Kinecroft, and possibly this may account for the suggestion that there was a slaughter house at the rear of the Cross Keys.

E. C. Hancock, who was Sheila Hancock's father, held the licence from 1933 until 1937 (before she was born).

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This history was compiled by Daphne Baker of The Wallingford Historical & Archaeological Society, who has kindly consented to its reproduction here.
© Daphne Baker 2008

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Links to Wallingford history can be found on the links page

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The Cross Keys, 48 High Street, Wallingford, Oxon. OX10 0DB
Tel: 01491 826377
email: crosskeys@crosskeysthepub.co.uk