The Wheatsheaf
Built in about 1850 by Nehemiah Reed on land immediately next to the Axe and Compass beer house, the original building appears to have been quickly enlarged by a lean-to extension to the south, creating a ‘public bar’ with a separate entrance. At the same time a small kitchen was added at the rear of the main building.
The earliest deed discovered so far for the land on which the pub was built dates from 1696 and comprises two leases to run consecutively for 99 years, 198 years in total! The agreement was between Edward Hopking, a 'linnon draper' from Marlborough and Joseph Waldron, a farm labourer from Ogbourne St Andrew. The price was a princely £12. It appears that the Waldron family held the lease until 1818 when it was passed via a Mr Phelps to John Gosling of the Marlborough Old Bank. Debts incurred by the Bank resulted in the transfer to William Tanner who then sold it to John Chun of Ogbourne St Andrew. John had been one of the village blacksmiths but had become a landlord of large areas of the village.
John Chun it was who sold the land to Nehemiah Reed to build the pub.
Reed, a retired Naval Captain, had started a second career running a brewery in Marlborough and building a series of pubs in Wiltshire, including the Wheatsheaf. It pased to Reed's son and on his death was bought by G & T Spencer's brewery. Unfortunately the purchase of Reed's empire was a step too far for Spencer's brewery, which folded and in 1914 Usher's Brewery bought it out.
In turn Ushers were bought by Watney Mann in 1970 and after about 25 years of being run as a tenancy, the Wheatsheaf was sold to Leaslie and Gary Gallagher.
The Wheatsheaf c1900
From its creation, the Wheatsheaf was a focal point of the parish, offering a centre for a variety of activities from the occasional drink with friends and neighbours, a meeting point for outings, gathering place for the local horse racing community and even occasional boxing matches being held in the lounge bar!
When the Axe and Compass was demolished in the 1950’s to create a car park, a detached toilet block was added. Further alterations were made during the 1960’s and as the village and society changed in the 1980’s, so ‘Pub Food’ was offered and attracted a wide following.
The 1990’s saw a dining area added to the rear, the public bar door changed to a window and the toilet block joined to the main building.
An excellent meeting point for a coach excursion in the late 1950's:
Recollections of life at The Wheatsheaf Inn
I was born in The Wheatsheaf Inn in 1949 and lived there until 1972 with my elder brother John and our parents Sydney and Dorothy Harris (Syd and Dolly) who ran the pub, Sydney having been the licensee since 1938. Growing up in a public house seemed perfectly normal to me and with my friends and the whole of Ogbourne parish as our playground, life as a youngster was pretty idyllic. I attended the village school under the care of Mrs Welch and Mrs Webb but was sure to nip back home each day for lunch.
The pub then was somewhat smaller than now at The Silks with separate lounge and public bars, each with their own entrance doors. Our downstairs living room occupied the space taken by the Silks kitchen, which seems a bit tight now but was fine back then. There was a small kitchen to the rear and an internal staircase to our bedrooms and bathroom.
The customers broadly fell into two categories – locals and passing trade. Ushers Brewery, who then owned the pub, acquired the neighbouring Axe & Compass former ale house around 1950 and demolished it to make way for the car park which greatly increased capacity for passing trade which was significant and sometimes hectic when a coach would pull in a discharge its passengers who all needed food and drink. It was literally all hands to the pumps. You never knew who might come in the door. I remember one evening in the early sixties a pink Rolls Royce arrived bearing a pink feather duster fixed to the bonnet and Ken Dodd stopped by for a drink. He proceeded to entertain the customers with jokes and stories – a comedian whose on and off-stage personas appeared inseparable.
I recall that traditional pub entertainment in the public bar was popular among the locals with card games, cribbage being particularly popular, shove-halfpenny and of course darts with a Wheatsheaf team competing in the Marlborough area darts league. In the lounge bar there was a record player and a large collection of old vinyl records which regular customers seemed to like but this was consigned to history in the mid-sixties when an amazing juke box arrived with all the latest hits, changed every fortnight. The pub now was alive with music – as a teenager I thought this was great and I had the code to get free plays!
Pub food on offer then was somewhat simpler than now. My mother would make freshly cut sandwiches but she was particularly known for her homemade meat and vegetable pies which were hugely popular and seemed to be the staple diet for many of the large number of stable lads from the Maizey yards of Sir Gordon Richards and Bob Turnell. These lads had bags of energy, sometimes too much when typically on a Saturday night they’d had one shandy too many. I remember we kept two pairs of boxing gloves in the pub which were occasionally used for ‘sparring’. Sunday lunchtimes would be when the racehorse owners, trainers and jockeys would arrive.
The pub was open every day from mid-morning to early afternoon and from 6pm to closing time and in between there was always work to do. Our Mum and Dad worked very hard to keep the business going and successful for so long. My brother and I would help around the pub; there were always empty bottles and barrels to be taken out for collection and new stock brought in. I recall that the wooden kegs of our best-selling Ushers Best Bitter needed to be treated with some respect - rolled in and placed on wooded ‘stillages’ behind the bar and allowed to settle for a couple of days then, with a confident wack with a mallet, drive in the brass tap and the wooden ‘spile’. Get it wrong and the result would be a drenching!
By the late sixties I was helping out behind the bar at busy times. I left school in 1967 and started work as an apprentice at Plessey, a large engineering company in Swindon. After my father passed away our mother held the pub license and my brother and I helped her in the evenings and at weekends. Life was busy. I finally moved from Ogbourne in 1972 to a new home in Swindon with my newly-wed Sue, whilst my brother John continued the family association with The Wheatsheaf as its licensee until 1977.
Roger Harris