Stories from Westbury Museum – The Angel

Our regular column from Westbury Museum sharing fascinating stories from Westbury’s past

You may have seen in this very newspaper that The Angel in Church Street is set to change its use and become a restaurant.

We thought this may be a great time for us all to look again at this extraordinary, listed building – probably the oldest pub in Westbury with parts dating back to the 16th century.

It is deceptive from the front, but its rendering is said to conceal timber box framing, and we know the building was once thatched, being insured as such for £150 in 1788.

This was an important inn with ten coaches weekly calling here to pick up passengers and parcels on their way to London, Bath, Bristol and Salisbury.

To the Edward Street side of the inn, there was a blacksmith’s shop and stables with the pub yard behind.

It was a popular inn for everything from politics to entertainment, competitions and shows.

In 1770, prizes of silver laced hats were awarded for ringing the best peal of bells. Then in 1845, the annual gooseberry show was held there with the winner’s 12 berries weighing nearly 15 ounces reputed to be the finest ever exhibited in the town.

It seems Westbury residents were keen gardeners – more than 300 acres were once occupied by allotments and cottage gardens and competition was fierce. Some of the vegetables sound interesting – ashleaf kidney potatoes, hollow crown parsnips and scarlet runner beans all featured in the competitions at The Angel.

The inn was also the venue for political meetings. A report in 1841 says meetings were being held every night to discuss the upcoming election with one voter stating he would not sell his vote for less than £20! This was in the days when very few people could vote and bribery and corruption was rife!

The following year the inn was the place for a Chartist meeting. Chartism was rife at this time with public meetings being suppressed by soldiers and police.

And this wasn’t just an inn for beer and politics – an advertisement in August 1833 reminded people that a dentist would be calling at The Angel on Thursday afternoons.

Landlords at The Angel haven’t always been upright members of the community. Robert Tucker who ran the inn in the late 1700s is said to have died drunk aged 69 in 1790. He was described by the local vicar as “a most drunken character, a whoremaster of a base vile debauched temper”!

With the coming of the railway, The Angel became the favourite venue for the annual GWR dinner for staff.

Sally Hendry