LETCHWORTH PUBS

A Short History of the Pubs of Letchworth

The Skittles Inn was designed by Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker, for use as a non-licensed public house. Opened on the 8th March 1907, The Inn combined the ideas of a continental cafe with that of an Old English Inn. The entrance hall still retains its original bar counter over which was sold Cydrax (a non-alcoholic apple wine), Bournville's Drinking Chocolate, Tea and Sarsparilla. The Skittles Inn closed in 1923, when the business transferred to Station Road. The building was then purchased by the Letchworth Adult Educational Settlement, which had previously been in rooms elsewhere in Letchworth. It was officially reopened in 1925

Today it is still used as a meeting place for Letchworth people. The Settlement is currently a Grade II listed building.

Most people believe the Broadway was the first time people had tried to open Licensed premises serving alcoholic beverages, this would be wrong for back 1938. First Garden City Ltd chose the corner of Spring Road and Icknield Way for the site of the first licensed premises, then moved it to be opposite the end of Abbots Road. (I am unable to find any information, still lookin) I have no further information on when it closed its doors. The First Garden City Ltd also took over the running of two more pubs about a mile from the town centre: the Fox at Willian and the Three Horseshoes in Norton. Both were allowed to serve alcohol.

Then in 1938 John Edwin Bigg, a butcher from Stotfold in, applied for a licence to build a pub in his own parish. By the merest coincidence it would be a few yards from the county boundary, just across the road from the Letchworth cemetery. Biggleswade magistrates had turned it down, while the Letchworth citizens demanded another poll that took place on the 3rd June 1939. 1,880 citizens voted against any pub within the boundary of Letchworth being built on the ethos of Ebenezers design. On the yes side there were only 1,435 citizens so it was turned down again. Mr Bigg had not given up and put his case before the Bench which was approved in February 1939. The 'Wilbury Hotel' started to be built.

The ban for Letchworth was finally lifted after a referendum of 1958, which resulted in the Broadway Hotel becoming the first public house in the centre of the Garden City. Several other pubs have opened since 1958, but to this day the town centre has fewer than half-a-dozen pubs.

During the war a bomb was dropped quite near the Three Horseshoes Inn at Norton causing light damage, then there was the big explosion fairly close to the the rear of The Wilbury Hotel, which took out a lot of windows, was the German air force targeting the pubs around Letchworth? Winston Churchill had heard about this and apparently wrote a letter to the local paper to say he was giving instructions to Bomber Command to target some German pubs in retaliation, obviously tongue in cheek and a bit of morale boosting for the people of Letchworth.

In 2013 Letchworth was used for the location of THE WORLDS END and the Golden mile in which they got very drunk and on arriving drove over our famous roundabout.