Ruth's Blog

Richard Gurnham’s new book, “Not Particularly Sober”, gives a detailed account of the pubs, inns and beer houses in Louth, past and present, which number more than a hundred.  Like all his books, this one contains a wealth of carefully researched information.  Here I want to focus not on specific drinking establishments, but on Dr Gurnham’s more general comments.

In the Middle Ages, almost everyone drank ale (i.e. beer made without hops), and it was drunk in enormous quantities.  The peasants’ staple diet was bread and ale.  Ale was made from malted barley, or sometimes also oats, mixed with hot water and fermented with yeast.  It was a darker colour than modern beer, but contained only about 2% alcohol, much weaker than beers today which average about 5%.

The task of brewing was usually undertaken by women, known as alewives, who brewed for the family, and sold any surplus.  In Louth, permission to sell ale from your cottage was given by the Manor Court.  Hanging a bush outside your door showed that ale was for sale.

In the late 16th century, Louth had a population of about 2,000 people.  Dr Gurnham estimates that at that time there were at least 20 alehouses in Louth, a far greater number than the number of inns.

Legally, the distinction between an alehouse and an inn or tavern was that only inns and taverns could sell wine.  In reality, alehouses sold beer for the local working population.  More wealthy people might eat and drink at the inns, but in general inns were places in which travellers, rather than local people, could stay overnight in a bed, with stabling for their horses.  A tavern was a smaller, less prestigious inn, which might not provide accommodation.  The term alehouse appears to have largely died out by 1800, and thereafter all establishments were called inns or public houses.

The earliest named inn in Louth was the Saracen’s Head, first mentioned in a will dated 1459.  It almost certainly became the Turk’s Head that we know in Aswell Street today.  Other long-established inns are the White Swan in Eastgate (first mentioned in 1612), the Wheatsheaf in Westgate (probably established in 1627), and the King’s Head in Mercer Row.

An Act of Parliament in 1830 allowed anyone to sell beer without a justice’s licence, so long as they purchased an excise licence.  Almost immediately lots of new beer-houses opened.  About half the drinking places described in Dr Gurnham’s book began as beer-houses.  Many, however, were very short-lived, and there were probably never more than 25 at any time.  Some, such as the Brown Cow in Newmarket, and the Miller’s Daughter (formerly the Malt Shovel) in Northgate evolved into public houses.