Duke of Wellington (The Warriors), 55 Church Street, Willingham

History of the Duke of Wellington

Listed Building

(Information from Historic England) Historic interest: * for its long, documented history as a public house from at least 1765, predating both the Beer Act of 1830 and the major period of public house construction at the end of the C19; * for the evidence found in the original roof structure of its early function as a row of small cottages. 

The Duke of Wellington public house is likely to have undergone its first phase of construction in the mid- to late-C17. There is a structural division at first floor and attic level between the west and the central bays of the street-facing range, suggesting that it may originally have been planned as a row of separate cottages.

It was first recorded as a public house in 1765 when it was known as The Warriors.

The 1837-1841 tithe apportionment for the parish of Willigham shows that the building had already been renamed the Duke of Wellington by that date. The same records show that the building was then owned by James Chivers and occupied by William Raven.

The 1841 tithe map shows the long-street facing range along church street with an extension to the rear at the east end. There was a separation between the pub and the barn at that date. Across the rear yard, diagonally opposite the north-east corner of the barn, was an L-shaped outbuilding of unknown function. That building was still evident in 1886, 1901, 1924 and 1974 when it appeared on successive 25″ Ordnance Survey maps, but had been demolished by at least the late 1990s.

In 1851 George Lack, Carpenter, along with his family and an apprentice were all resident at the Duke.

By the 1880s the west end of the street-range had been extended to connect with the rear barn.

In 1897 the building, which then belonged to the Cottenham Brewery, was auctioned alongside the brewery itself. It was described as having a ‘large and well-planted Garden at the back, together with the Wheelwright’s Shop and other Outbuildings’, and was tenanted by Jane Robinson, its long serving landlady. The wheelwright may have made use of the outbuilding that is no longer extant, or the barn on the western boundary of the site.