The Hopbine Beer House - Cherry Hinton Pubs History
I have almost finished writing the full history of the Hopbine beer house and it will be ready to read here online shortly. It will be available as a free PDF booklet, which you'll be able to download using the link at the bottom of this article or by visiting the Downloads shop in the main menu above. In the meantime, I thought I would share with you some of the information and lovely old photographs showing rare glimpses of this long-forgotten Cherry Hinton beer house.
The Hopbine beer house (or Hopvine as it was sometimes known) once stood at the northern end of Cherry Hinton on the western side of the High Street, just south of Fernlea Close. Today nothing remains of the original buildings above ground and the site now lay beneath new houses since built on the High Street. It was in operation for about 100 years, from at least 1851 to the 1950s.
It was a beer house rather than a public house as the Beer Act of 1830 removed duty on beer and people were encouraged to run what were instead called beer houses for a licence fee, which was much cheaper than paying for a full licence to be a public house. This distinction between beer-only beer houses and fully licensed pubs selling beer, wine and spirits remained until around 1960.
In the photograph below, you are on Cherry Hinton High Street, past the railway crossing, looking north towards St Andrew's Church - if you look carefully you will see, in the centre of the picture, left of the horse and cart, a wall with a short white vertical line on it - this is the old gas lamp sat on St Andrew's Church wall until earlier this year, before being damaged by vandals.
On the immediate left of the picture is an old thatched cottage which was called Robert's Cottage. Next to that was another house, bound by a fence, which can't be seen in this picture and then, set back from the road and again out of sight in this picture, was the original Five Bells public house - you can just make out the tall black and white post with the pub sign at the top.
Beyond that are a row of cottages and you can just make out another sign hanging from these - this is the sign of the Hopbine beer house.
I have added it again below, enlarged twice for you - although we lose definition on the picture it is still good to take a closer look.
The photograph below is of a similar date of the one above -perhaps around c.1910 - again here you can make out the rectangle hanging sign which is attached to the cottage roof with an iron bracket. You can see what looks like a family standing outside the door to the Hopbine. You'll be able to read more about the people who owned and lived in the Hopbine and more about activities that took place there in the full history that I'll add here soon.
This next photograph below is from c.1927, and a little later on from the previous photographs but still looking from a slightly different angle, northwest, up the High Street. You can see Robert’s Cottage on the immediate left, the first house - this cottage, which District Nurse Harniman once lived in*, was demolished in 1966 to make way for the new Five Bells pub car park) and can now just catch a glimpse of the house we couldn't see previously, with its fence. Next along and set back from the road we can now see more of the original Five Bells pub with its pub sign followed by the row of cottages which include the Hopbine beer house/Quinney’s store with a man outside - this time it looks as though the Hopbine beer house sign has gone; this reflects the gradual change from beer house to grocery store. The house on the end is still shown as before and was Stanley Tabor's house, it stood at what is now the entrance to Fernlea Close. Beyond that, The Pamplin Brothers had their steam engine yard which then joined with Coldhams Lane (now houses).
(A separate history of the Five Bells Pub will be coming later this year. Along with a separate history of the Pamplin Brothers)
The Quinney family were the last family to run the beer house and began selling groceries and other items from the house. This was the very first version of the well-loved Quinney's shop, which after these buildings were pulled down, moved a little further south down the High Street to become Quinney's shop and newsagents in the house on the corner on Fernlea Close and the High Street (where Sun Studios are today).
It was Albert Frederick Quinney snr (born 1883 died 1960 aged 78) who was an ex-landlord of the Red Lion pub (1903-1908), - he was also a shopkeeper, butcher and grave digger* - who moved from the Red Lion into the old Hopbine and ran it as a shop, butchery and betting shop, amongst other things. He eventually had his new shop built on the north corner of Fernlea Close/High Street. His son Albert Frederick Quinney jnr (born 1904 died 1986 aged 82) took over from his father as shopkeeper but was no butcher*
The photograph below shows George Quinney (died 1961 aged 41) with Rover the dog*, outside his father's shop, the old Hopbine - you can still see the metal work bracket, which once held the beer house sign, still attached to the roof.
The photograph below shows a view looking in the opposite direction, south down Cherry Hinton High Street, with the Hopbine/Quinney's shop on the right side of the photograph. On the left-hand side, you can see the original Cherry Hinton School (where the school stands today on the High Street). The Gog Magog Hills can be seen in the distance and the railway crossing gates in the centre. To the extreme right-hand side you will see Stanley Tabor standing at a gateway at the end of the cottages.
The picture below shows the view towards where the Hopbine used to stand - approximately fronting the High Street where the brick wall is shown - The picture is c.1984 and shows the new Five Bells pub (cream building beyond the brick wall), the new road of Fernlea Close leading off of the High Street and Quinney's shop which he had built after the demolition of the Hopbine cottages. On the right, the houses with the black weatherboard are built on what was Pamplin's steam plough works meadow.
Below: The same view today
In the forthcoming full history of the Hopbine you will be able to see more pictures and a lot more detailed information, so do keep an eye out for that here, over the next month, and do follow me on the socials like Facebook and so on, to keep up with news of new releases on here as they happen.
* thanks to Richard Hoye archives held at Cambridgeshire Collection for these extra bits of useful information
You will be able to download a free PDF copy of the full 'History of The Hopbine Beer House, Cherry Hinton' here shortly.