An Historical Pub Crawl

The Horse and Farrier pub on the main road halfway between Stockport and Altrincham was owned and run by a W.H.Platt. He was still the landlord when it was sold to Hyde's Queens Brewery, Moss Side, in or about 1918. In those days it had a good billiard table upstairs and when you went in for a pint there were boxes of matches on all the tables and flowers on the bar. There was a tap room where beer was a ha'penny cheaper. In that room were spittoons with sawdust in them and pipe smokers used to spit in them. The floor was flagged and coal fireplaces gave a warm and cosy glow on cold nights.

There was a cottage attached where a Mrs. Swan lived. Wagons and pony and traps used to pull in, and on Sunday mornings all the "four-in-hands" out for a drive round Styal and Wilmslow would stop for refreshment. I would get tuppence for holding the horses' heads while the owners went in for a drink. At that time, all the trams from Reddish stopped outside the pub as it was the terminus.

The Ancient order of Foresters, The Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes and the Oddfellows all held their meetings there. Now the local Cheadle and Gatley Round Table meet there alternate Mondays.
In those days you wouldn't see ladies drinking or smoking, but I think the pubs were open all day. I once remember my grandfather coming into our house and asking my mother for an empty bottle. He would use it as an excuse to go to the pub to get the deposit back and while he was there someone would usually buy him a pint.

You could get a packet of Woodbines for tuppence, A glass of beer for tuppence-ha'penny, a box of matches for a penny and still have a ha'penny change from sixpence! That is two and a half New Pence in todays money!
There were no meals served at the Horse and Farrier but I remember you could get a round of bread and a big piece of cheese with a pickled onion.
Then around 1930 the pub was modernised, the cottage was knocked into the pub and a large beer garden laid out at the back. Tables with large umbrellas were placed in the garden and children were allowed in with their parents. Where the car park is now were three cottages in a row. The end one was the District Bank. The lady who lived there, a Mrs.Souter, let her front room to the bank. Through the yard of the pub, and around the back, was a little footpath that eventually took you to Northenden, past the Cheshire Lines signal box.

The Prince of Wales was another of Hyde's houses. When I was a boy of 14, Mrs.Taylor kept the pub and when I was on my way to school she would sometimes ask me to take an order to the house on Gatley Road where Mr.William Scholes lived. He was the man who gave the playing fields to the village and I knew him well. The order I used to take was half a dozen Oatmeal Stouts at 11d a bottle and a dozen small ones at five pence ha'penny. I used to get a penny for going.
The Prince of Wales was only a beerhouse then and the beer was sold straight from the barrel. Going down the lobby, the tap room was on the left and there was a small bar at the back that served both the tap room and the bar room which only held about six people. The landlady lived in the room on the right and used to have to walk through her living room to go to the cellar to bring the beer in big white jugs. In those days there was no carpet on the floor, it was just flags.

You could take your own jug and have it filled up for 5d. There was always a game of dominoes to be had. Sometimes there would be three of us in the pub at nine o'clock waiting for another person to come in so we could make up a four for the game! Sometimes I would hear the landlady say "Where are they all tonight?", because there would only be half a dozen people in all night. There was always a good fire to welcome you especially when the snow was on the ground.
The pub used to run a good trip once a year to Blackpool or Morecambe. Peddlers would come round selling razor blades and shoelaces and things like that. There was always someone coming in selling flowers for a shilling a bunch. The landlady would play the piano and someone would get up and sing songs like "Absence" or "The Floral Dance". You could hear a pin drop it was so quiet! Certainly a good evening was enjoyed by all.

Next to the pub was a small cottage fronted by apple and pear trees. There was also a large cherry tree that used to hang over the footpath. As we went to school we used to pick the cherries. In those days the outside of the pub was limewashed cream, with green framed windows and the door grained and varnished. All around the top was a large sign which read "Hyde's Beer and Stouts"
How nice it was to go into the "Mop".......that was the Prince of Wales. It was never called anything else in my time. There are many different stories about how it got it's name but the one I remember was that one morning a customer arrived at the pub and found a mop that the cleaner had left leaning against the wall. It was frozen solid because there was a hard frost. The customer said" Mrs.Mop's frozen!" and the name stuck. Another version is that the feathers on the crest of the Prince of Wales look like a mop-head. I think I prefer my version!
It is one of the only pubs in the country where the cellar is upstairs! Not many stairs, I admit, but still upstairs!

Past the Prince of Wales, at the top of Church Road, was the Red Lion. It's been called a lot of things since but is now back to it's proper name. It was a Threlfalls of Salford pub and a very nice house. They used to have a celery show each year. The locals all grew their own celery. Two in a box was a "double" and there was also a competition for single sticks. In those early days the pub only sold beer. You couldn't get a pie or a meal anywhere in Gatley. The Oddfellows held their meetings there for a while, once a week. Adjoining the pub were some cottages with a Mrs.Wood living in one. I lived in another for a few years. During the First War she would open a room in her house for children to knit socks for the Forces, in France. She used to get letters of thanks from Queen Alexandra who was the patron for receiving gifts for soldiers. The three cottages were owned by the Hulse's who owned a farm across the road. They were let to the farm workers. At this time the pub was run by a Mrs.Coombes. Later the cottages were pulled down and a car park built. There was a well behind the pub fed by an underground stream. I believe that even now they have a pump going to stop the flooding.