Beams Cottage, formerly The Bull's Head

zoom

zoom

Beams Cottage was originally built in the sixteenth century.  It forms part of what was once a substantial public house, The Bull’s Head, which stood on this site and that of the modern houses, numbers 47 and 49 next door.

The cottage can be clearly seen in the upper picture, taken from a postcard printed in about 1905.  It is on the left of the picture, with what seems to be a handcart parked outside.

The Bull’s Head was opened in 1667 in the reign of Charles II and has changed in size and appearance several times over the centuries.  On the tithe redemption map of 1841 it appears as a large building with a long rear projection sticking out into a large garden which extended all the way to Silver Street.

In the early part of the twentieth century the property was owned by Phillip’s, brewers of Royston, who sold it in 1949, shortly before they went out of business.  The Bull’s Head became a private house in about 1950.

In the lower photograph, also from a postcard dating from about 1905, the Bull’s Head appears on the right of the picture and Beams Cottage is the lower part of the building, just beside the pub sign.

Less than a hundred years later, the property had undergone another transformation into the attractive but almost unrecognisable cottage it is today.