Salter’s Brewery and the Coach and Horses

To discover the history of the Coach and Horses, we trace our steps back in time to the late 1600’s and the Salter family of Rickmansworth. 

Around 1720, a Samuel Salter arrived in Rickmansworth.  Born around 1695, this young man married Elizabeth Robinson in 1724 and settled in the town. We are unsure of the exact date that Samuel began brewing, however in 1741, at the age of 41, he bought the Coach and Horses and his dwelling rate had risen from 1/- to 4/-, a good indication that a change of occupation had arisen at wherever he lived.   

The Coach and Horses itself dates back to at least 1722, with the foundations of the building dating as far back at the end of the 16th Century.  Salter’s brewery emerged at a later date beside the pub.  40 years later, in 1762 the pub was integrated with the neighbouring Salter brewery buildings and is reported to being used as the brewery tap.

The brewery remained a family business for the next 201 years.  After Samuel Salter’s death in June 1970 at the age of 53, his son, Stephen took over the brewery, acquiring several other public houses around the area.  This included the Coach and Horses in Ickenham, the Rose and Crown in Mill End, the Bell in Pinner, the Feathers in Uxbridge, the White Heart in Bushey, the Blue Bear in Uxbridge, the Vine in Hillingdon and the Red Lion in Elstree, all between 1767 and 1786.  However by the age of 63 it seems that his son, Samuel Salter II had taken over the running of Salter’s brewery and like his father, acquiring numerous other houses.  Within his lifetime, he was responsible for the building of the brewery and also the malting on the east end of the high street, on the opposite side to Salter’s Brewery.

In 1800 at the age of 74, Stephen Salter passed away, leaving his entire enterprise to his only son.  He was;

            “sincerely regretted by his family and numerous friends.”

The brewery continued to expand under the ownership of Samuel II and in the nineteenth century the Grand Union Canal built various branches in and around Rickmansworth.  One of them was for Salter’s brewery, to be known as Salter’s Cut and situated near to the new wharf.  The predominant use was for the transportation of beer from the brewery to Uxbridge, and the empty barrels returned.

Samuel II continued to run the brewery by himself until 1827 when he had taken on one Job Woodman as his partner.  In June 1829 Samuel II died however the Rickmansworth brewery continued to prosper as Salter and Co.  Woodman, despite being his business partner only continued to run the daily concerns of the Brewery.  The running was left to the control and discretion of Woodman’s two trustees, Thomas Fellowes and William Capell, the latter possibly being Samuel II’s grandson. 

Free Beer

In his will, Samuel Salter II ordered that a free cask of ale should be left in the yard for passers-by and travellers.  This practice drew much attention, eventually forcing the Coach and Horses, Rickmansworth, to redistribute the free cask outside of the brewery yard house to the old malthouse entrance.  The free cask remained in place until around 1857 when it was eagerly awaited everyday by a large crowd.  The brewery was forced to put an end to the practice since crowds of up to 100 people would empty it in less than an hour and get aggressive towards one another.  On 11th October 1851 one reporter for the ‘Illustrated London News’ was disappointed to find that the barrel ‘had run to its last legs’ by time he had reached Rickmansworth.

In January 1858 Thomas Fellowes passed away at his home, Money Hill House.  The business was left to his two sons, Harvey Winson Fellowes and Herbert William Fellowes.  By 1861, Herbert had taken full control of the brewery, introducing steam power by implementing an engine driver. 

Mary Ann Evans, better known to you or me as the author George Eliot, resided in The Elms next door to Herbert and wrote to her friend that she;

‘preferred a country were I don’t make bad friends by having to see one public house to every six dwellings, which is literally the case in many spots around us.  My gall rises at the rich brewers, in Parliament and out of it, who plant their poison shops for the sake of their million-making trade, while probably their families are figured somewhere as refined philanthropists and ritualists.” 

Towards the end of the 19th century the brewery underwent a major physical change under the management of Harvey Fellowes.  The architect William Bradford designed a new look for the premises, enlarging the entire area.  The brewery gained a large store area, stables that could hold up to 20 horses towards the back, and a food store to the left of the Brewery House.  There was also a second malting house built before 1896 on the north side of the Metropolitan Railway line.  The changes did not stop there.

In December 1889, Salter’s brewery became the first Hertfordshire brewery to become a limited company.  It was run by Thomas Davenport, Major Bevil Granville, Captain John Fullerton and the Reverend Edward Capel.  A price list for the brewery was shortly issued, presenting 9 draught beers, 2 bottled beers, a pale ale and a double stout:

            Reproduce the coloured list on canvas

One year later, 1890, and again the management of the brewery had passed hands.  This time to a James Scully who continued to manage it for over 3 decades.  In his late 30’s, Scully was a popular manager of Salter’s brewery, giving the employees an extra weeks wages, on top of their Christmas bonus in 1895.  As reported in the licensing magistrates’ survey of Hertfordshire, by 1902, Salter’s owned 47 tied public houses, controlling 19 out of the 50 pubs and beer houses in and around Rickmansworth by 1905.  

By the time of James Scully’s death in December 1923, Salter’s brewery owned or leased 77 tied houses in Hertfordshire.  Within a matter of weeks after his death, Salter’s brewery was up for sale.  In March 1924, Cannon Brewery Company Ltd of London bought Salter’s brewery and the tied houses.  The 201-year Salter brewery reign had finally come to an end.

Since Salter’s Brewery, the site has been used by boat builders, a cinema in 1926, by a tennis racquet maker and a fertiliser firm.  However in 1972 the old brewery buildings were sold off and demolished to make way for offices.  The original malting house was used later by a photographic film maker, a winery and Reckitt & Colman.  The newer malting house now forms a subsidiary part of the local Catholic church.  The Coach and Horses pub was sold to Taylor Walker, which later was taken over by Ind Coope in 1959.  In that same transaction, the Coach and Horses, along with 5 other public houses, was sold to Wells and Winch, which in 1961 became part of Greene King and has been ever since.