Home > Essex > Chigwell > The Maypole The Maypole
	Picture source: Hania Franek
The Maypole was situated at 171 Lambourne Road.
This pub has now reopened.
Colin Price (September 2014)
Now closed again.
Phil Gaskin (October 2016)
Local newspaper review by John Cutting, 1967
Charles Dickens, in his famous novel ”Barnaby Rudge,” gave a full description of the King”s Head but, to suit the story, he moved the building to the site of the old Maypole at Chigwell Row. That inn has now been converted into two dwelling houses but the present Maypole was erected close by just over a hundred years ago. There is an aerial photograph in the saloon which shows clearly the relative positions of the old and new inns. An old painting reveals that, adjacent to the old inn, there was a pond. This was subsequently filled in, largely with broken bottles and glasses supplied by the brewers, and the space is, today, used by the buses as a turning-point. Although there is no evidence to show that a maypole was ever set up where the inn now stands, the area at the top of Gravel Lane could well have been a clearing in the midst of Hainault Forest. It was to such places that, in Tudor England, branches of trees and flowers were carried in triumph to celebrate May Day. In the centre of the procession was a high pole, painted with spiral stripes of different colours and decked with ribbons, around which the merrymakers would dance. Jim Tolson, now over eighty years old and a life-long resident of Chigwell Row, was once a forest ranger. He remembers when the forest was more extensive but, today, it is but a skeleton of its former glory and no longer can anyone walk across the fields to Chigwell, as Dickens described. The exterior of the Maypole looks undistinguished and the view is not improved by an ugly out-building. This was once a skittle alley but is now used as an additional bar during the summer months. Inside the Maypole, however, the atmosphere is warm and friendly and the saloon has all the charm and comforts associated with an old inn. Frank and Win Hobby have been in charge for the past nineteen years and have drawn around them a wide circle of friends. Frank has been connected with the trade much of his life, for his father was once tenant at the nearby Two Brewers. On the wall are a couple of pictures, surrounded by post horns, which convey vividly and rather nostalgically the spirit of the old English inn. A group of men, one in hunting pink, are seen deep in conversation and contentedly holding their churchwarden pipes. In the background the landlord appears to be listening, rather sceptically, to an angler who is proudly displaying his catch. The other scene depicts an old shepherd in smock who sits meditating quietly as though his thoughts still lie in the open fields. A younger man warms his ale over the fire in a beer muller watched placidly by a homely black cat. The bar counter is well designed and has a comfortable padded arm-rest while, above, a delightful wrought-iron trellis is both decorative and functional. The centre-piece is a representation of a maypole and the attached shelves support the glasses and tankards in accessible position. The whole display around the counter is indeed an attractive sight. On week-days, at lunch-time, tables are laid for meals in one part of the saloon. Various snacks are on the menu each day but Frank has, at present, no plans to enlarge this service. In the public bar there is a good darts board and the team compete in a local league, but the most popular pastime enjoyed by many regular customers is the old English game of dominoes. Thanks to its connection with Dickens, the Maypole is well known and members of the Dickensian Society regularly visit the inn. Both the British Legion and Chigwell Round Table hold meetings there and Frank, who is a past chairman of both the Essex Licence Holders Protection Society and the Epping L.V.A., is often host to his colleagues in the trade. Chigwell is apparently named after the number of wells in the district, and during some recent alterations no less than three shafts were discovered in the garden of the Maypole. The South Essex Waterworks have recently constructed what is possibly the largest well of all as part of their treatment works in Pudding-lane. The beer at the Maypole is excellent. It is kept in a large cellar which is maintained at the correct temperature by one of the numerous underground streams which honeycomb the area. It is probable that Charles Dickens drank at the old Maypole and he knew how to appreciate the value of good draught. In ”The Old Curiosity Shop” he wrote: ”Did you ever taste beer?” ”I had a sip of it once,” said the small servant. ”Here”s a state of things!” cried Mr. Swiveller. . . ”She never tasted it — it can”t be tasted in a sip!””
Brewers: Ind Coope (East Anglia) Ltd
The Fame of Chigwell and Chigwell Row - Facts about The Maypole as mentioned by Charles Dickens in "Barnaby Rudge"
While the rural beauty of Chigwell is suffering from the activities of the builder, the heart of it on the hill by the church remains as it was in Dickens’s day. It is pleasant to stand there and imagine the village, a gem of the countryside guarded by the wooded slopes of the forest, as it was in 1841, when Dickens wrote to Forster:— “Chigwell my dear fellow, is the greatest place in the world. Name your day for going. Such a delicious old inn opposite the churchyard—such a lovely ride—such beautiful forest scenery—such an out of the way rural place—such a sexton! I say again, name your day.” The church is the burial place of Archbishop Harsnett, born in the parish of St. Botolph’s, Colchester, who was instituted to the vicarage of Chigwell before being elected Archbishop of York. In the year 1629 he founded Chigwell School, where William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was educated, in the same century. The fine old inn still opens its doors to those requiring rest and refreshment and a glimpse of the interior described by Dickens in Barnaby Rudge. There is evidence that before Dickens visited it with Forster it was a boarding school known as “The White House” or “The Great House,” while on the site of the cottages adjoining was the “King’s Head Inn.” When the present “King’s Head” became the inn is uncertain, but the “delicious old inn opposite the churchyard” was the old “King’s Head,” which stretched up to the private house known as “The White House” or “The Great House.” Undoubtedly Dickens knew the house which is now called the “King’s Head” Inn, and in describing the Barnaby Rudge ‘Maypole” he blended its architectural features with the actual old inn next door. There arises the question of the site of the “Maypole,” for the position of the present “King’s Head” does not agree with the topography in Barnaby Rudge. In chapter one is mentioned a guest to the “Maypole” “who was the parish clerk and bellringer of Chigwell, a village hard by,” and when Barnaby Rudge was published there was speculation in the neighbourhood as to the locality Dickens described. It was true that his account of the inn was that of the “King’s Head,” but the facts of the absence of a village green at Chigwell and the nearness of the church to the inn did not coincide with the book. On being asked about it by his neighbour, Dickens said: “The fact is, I patched it. The place in my mind was Chigwell Row, but I moved the ‘King’s Head’ Inn to the site of the real ‘Maypole’ as more suitable to my story.” The old “Maypole” at Chigwell Row still exists behind the present “Maypole” there, and is now converted into two dwelling houses. Visitors to Chigwell should see the “King’s Head” Inn so delightfully pictured in the tale, and then they should go to the old “Maypole” standing on the site which Dickens had in mind when writing Barnaby Rudge.
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Other Photos
Date of photo: 1966	Picture source: John Cutting
Picture source: Hania Franek
Date of photo: 2013	Picture source: Fergy Campbell
Date of photo: 2014	Picture source: Colin Price