Home > Essex > Ongar > Drill House Drill House
Date of photo: 1970	Picture source: Steve Lee
The Drill House was situated on Toot Hill Road and is now in residential use.
Source: Darkstar
We used to drink at the Drill House from time to time. After meeting Julie at the Globe in Epping we met up again here, I bought her another drink and from then on, the relationship took off! We are still together over 55 years later.
Martin Harris (August 2025)
Local newspaper review by John Cutting, 1960s
The Drill House, on the  boundary between Stanford Rivers and Greensted, lies in the heart of rich agricultural country. Luckily, in this part of the country at least, attempts to encroach upon the Green Belt have been frustrated and long may this hppy state of affairs continue.
The inn has a delightful garden sloping down to a pond wherein 'Jemima Puddleduck', a matriarch of twenty years, jealously watches over her offsprings' broods. The situation of the Drill House is, indeed, remote and nearby, at Draper's Corner, there is a wood reputed to be haunted as a result of a suicide by hanging long ago. Certainly it is true that dogs all shun the area and, if forced to enter, show signs of tension and distress.
The gable stone on the inn states that the present building was erected in 1847, and is was, at that time, a place where agricultural machinery was sold. The attractive modern inn-sign shows the type of drill which could well have been the most popular implement in stock and which gave the house its name. There is no doubt, however, that there were earlier cottages on the site and scrolls recently discovered in the village show that ales were brewed in the farmhouses during the Seventeenth Century.
Peter and June Mechlenburgh have only been at the Drill House for eighteen months but, during that period, there have been remarkable changes at the inn. At one time Peter hoped to form a cricket club and play on the adjacent field. Unfortunately, it transpired that the project would prove very expensive and the limited space available would undoubtedly have made the pub windows an easy target for enthusiastic hitters. However as a result of donations received from well-wishers it was found possible to start a successful Clay Pigeon Club and meetings are held every month.
There is in the Public Bar a photograph taken at Whitbread's Brewery which shows four pairs of the wonderful horses which are still admired each year when they draw the Lord Mayor's Coach. The top hats and leather aprons of the draymen were once familiar features of the London scene.
The Saloon is decorated by a number of coloured prints depicting scenes in Regency days. These are from a series commissioned by the brewers some years ago and for the most part show coaching inns in various parts of the country. The costumes of the period are faithfully recorded and in many of the groups are military types in walking-out dress while aristocratic looking dogs and horses complete the picture.
On the outside wall of the Drill House there is a well-preserved pillar box, proudly bearing the Royal Cypher V.R. which must be one of a dwindling number of boxes erected during the reign of her late majesty. On the door of the box are inscribed '4 Repentance' while opposite the inn a cottage and a field also bear the name Repentance.
The story is told how juvenile delinquents of an earlier period were forced to do a stint of work in the field and were afterwards taken to the cottage where they wrote to their parents a letter of contrition which was then posted at the inn.
A large photograph showns the Drill House as it appeared earlier in the Century. The landlady and a group of customers glare aggressively at the camera while in the foreground a modern looking bicycle is proudly displayed.
This was probably the period when a local dentist was reputed to practise his profession in the bar. Teeth were extracted for the price of 2d. a go, no doubt after the patient had been sufficiently anaesthetised by a liberal consumption of the landlady's strong ale!
Was this what the poet had in min when he wrote: 'We have drunken of things Lethean'
Brewers: Whitbread and Co. Ltd
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Other Photos
Picture source: Phil Gaskin