The former Crown Inn

Image: © Evelyn Simak Taken: 12 Mar 2017

This view was take from West Head Road, the main thoroughfare through the village. The building depicted here used to be the Crown Inn. It is situated on the west bank of the River Great Ouse at Stowbridge. The licence was held by John Griggs, who was also a butcher and toll collector for the bridge, from the mid 1850s for thirty years and then by his nephew William Griggs to the end of the century. In 1851 the licensee was Charles Bond who also farmed 82 acres while John Griggs was a butcher on West Head Road, born in Magdalen around 1814, son of Jacob Griggs and his wife Elizabeth nee Riches. In 1881, the census record shows that John is assisted in the pub by barmaid Alice Porter, aged 16, his great niece, daughter of his brother Benjamin’s daughter Mary Ann who married John Larman Porter in Southery on 05 November 1860. William Griggs, who succeeded John, was born in Stow in 08 May 1844, son of William Griggs who was born in Stow on 21 October 1816 to parents William Griggs, farmer, and Sarah Riches who were married in Magdalen on 04 May 1809. Charles Bond was born in Whittlesey around 1810. George Balls is landlord in 1933 according to Kelly’s Directory. After the pub was closed in the 1960s, it became a guest house and later a field study centre. Source: Downham Market & Around, Local Parish Histories

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