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Home > Berkshire >
Reading > Boars Head
Boars Head
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Picture source: Dan Pieters-Ericksonn |
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The Boars Head was situated at 26 Friar Street
and was demolished in 2003. |
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Source: Bob Brodie |
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Was it a chance meeting, an offer or
request to pose for a portrait, an elopement, or a honeymoon for a
free-thinking couple who shirked the marriage conventions? Whatever the
circumstances, James Paull Drew, describing himself as a figure painter, and
Emma Freeman found themselves under the same roof on Census night, 30 March
1851, when it is just possible that my ancestor Eva Bertha, born eight
months later 50 miles away in Wiltshire, was conceived. James was from
Devizes (like many of the Drew name), Emma from distant Eynesbury, although
perhaps she had come to visit one of the Freeman families in the area. There
is no record of the couple ever having married, but Emma took James' surname
and three further children were born at Reading. Had they earlier planned to
settle in Reading, or was the inn the crucial element in their decision? Did
they ever revisit the Boars Head to reminisce? Could visits by the many
descendants (had we but known) of this and other bountiful trysts have kept
the doors open past 2002? Perhaps therein lies a vein yet to be mined by
modern publicans. |
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A Descendant, Australia (June 2018) |
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A VERY popular pub with Welsh Reading Festival
goers in the 1970-late 1980’s…..landlord did a gorgeous cooked breakfast! |
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Ian McNicholas (March 2023) |
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The Boars Head was used as a regular meeting
place for the overseers of St. Mary’s Parish to discuss the affairs of the
poor from at least 1771. Expense claims are listed for meetings there in the
paybooks at the Berkshire Record Office on almost a monthly basis through
1771 and 1772. |
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Margaret Ounsley (April 2023) |
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