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BEERHOUSES

hop vine inn (hop pole)

Back Kingston

 

This was a relatively short-lived beerhouse and the Hop Vine Inn (also known as the Hop Vine Inn and the Hop Pole) was located in Back Kingston (today's Higher Kingston) close, within five or six cottages, to Fiveways crossroads (there was no roundabout then) but it is not possible to tell which side of the road.

 

 

 

I could find no trace of George Copshaw in any records but the next licensee, John Phillips, was born about 1829 at Sampford Peverell, Devon. Little is known of his early life but in his later life he seemed to move about the country with great frequency. In 1841, at the age of 14, he was living on his own in Sandford Peverell and working as an agricultural labourer. In September 1849 he married Lydia Knight, ten years his senior and in the 1851 census John was working as a railway labourer and living in Sampford Peverell with Lydia and his younger brother, Richard. In 1852 they had a daughter Elizabeth, born in Sampford Peverell but their next daughter, Susan, was born in 1855 in Odcombe, four miles west of Yeovil. Their next daughter, Mary, was born the following year in Martock, eight miles northwest of Yeovil, and their son, Alfred, was born at Sutton Bingham, four miles south of Yeovil, in 1859. In the 1861 census John was listed as the licensee of the Hop Vine Inn, although Kelly's Directory of 1861 referred to it as the Hop Pole. Ten years on and the 1871 census found John working as a labourer and living with Lydia and Mary in lodgings in High Street, Oakfield, Hampshire. All the other children had left home. In the 1881 census he was on his own, a visitor on the night of the census, lodging in a beerhouse in Midhurst, Sussex, and working as a railway labourer. Lydia, in the meantime, was living at Ryde, Isle of Wight, with her daughter Elizabeth and her husband Francis Serrito. Her occupation was given as a monthly nurse. Lydia died at the age of 74 in 1889 at Ryde. In the 1891 census John was living at Ryde with his daughter Elizabeth (now aged 37 and widowed) and 12-year old granddaughter Minnie. John's occupation was listed as disabled plate layer retired. John died on the Isle of Wight in December 1893, aged 64.

Walter Newick was born about 1833 at Hinton St George, ten miles west of Yeovil. He was the son of widowed school mistress Elizabeth Newick and in 1841 lived in the school house with his mother and five older siblings. In the 1851 census the family were still in Hinton St George, Walter was now aged 19 and a baker like his 32-year old brother James. His sister Mary Elizabeth was a dressmaker and their mother did not offer an occupation for the census. Walter married in 1855 and by the time of the 1861 census he was working as a baker in Chiselborough, seven miles west of Yeovil, with his wife Mary and their daughter, Alice, who had been born in 1856 in Misterton, ten miles southwest of Yeovil. In 1866 Kelly's Directory listed Walter as the licensee of the Hop Vine in Back Kingston, Yeovil - the final reference to the establishment. I could find no further records of Walter Newick, other than this notice in the 11 April 1865 edition of the Sherborne Mercury -

 

It is possible that William Cook Jesty took on the license in the early 1870's - see here.

 

 

1859 – George Copshaw (Harrison, Harrod & Co 1859 Directory) listed as Hop Vine
1861 – John Phillips – Inn Keeper (1861 census) listed as Hop Vine Inn
1861 – John Phillips (Kelly's 1861 Directory) listed as Hop Pole
1866 – Walter Newick (Kelly's 1866 Directory) listed as Hop Vine