The Bell 1859 - 1899

The Bell 1859 - 1889

The last sweeps at the Bell
Samuel Mapperley took over the Bell following Daniel Winters' death. Established as a sweep in St Ives, Samuel and family first lived in Alldens Yard. Living with them was 10-year-old sweep apprentice William Cates.

Samuel and his 16-year-old son Walter carried on their chimney sweep business while running the Bell as cheap accommodation for the poorest customers, even tramps. By 1861, six family members lived alongside twenty-one lodgers, two of whom were single, the remaining nineteen spread over six families. Confectioner John Kidman and his shoemaker son lived in the cottages out back, and in the Bell Yard were another twenty five occupants in four families. 

Among them was Henry Wilkinson and his son Daniel (15), both chimney sweeps. Henry's family consisted of his wife and another eight children. By 1871, Henry had followed Samuel Mapperley's path, becoming landlord of The Queen Victoria in West Street while continuing as a sweep. His sons briefly joined the trade. Henry died sweeping chimneys at the Unicorn Hotel in 1887, aged 70.

By 1871, the Bell had probably sunk to its lowest level. Of eighteen boarders, six were tramps, two hawkers and two pedlars. One was Thomas Cox (20), a sweep employed by Samuel. Thomas was a troubled sweep, accused of stealing from Samuel in 1873, making false confessions in 1879, and involved in a drunken dispute at the Crown Inn at Fenstanton in 1880. By 1882, he attempted suicide with laudanum while lodging at the Hoops Inn in Chatteris. The bottle was taken from him and he survived, only to die the following year, aged 31.

By 1881, Samuel still ran the Bell with twelve boarders staying, while in the Bell Yard were two families of ten people. In 1891 Samuel had handed over the reins of the Bell to his son in law, carpenter Arthur Hurl, but continued to board there. At 74, he still listed himself as a chimney sweep. Samuel Mapperley died in 1911, aged 94 years.

St Ives pubs

Although much of the Bell's income came from boarders, it was also one of forty-eight pubs in St Ives. And probably a pub very much in the original style, with a couple of front rooms used for customers.

When St Ives became a market town 1,000 years ago, beer was sold. The Old Ferry Boat Inn at Holywell claims to be the oldest pub in England, serving beer at that location 1,500 years ago. Before aquifer water was piped into St Ives in 1890, drinking water was risky. Rivers, wells and pumps were often polluted by sewage. Cholera, typhoid, and dysentery were common, linked to dirty water. Brewing beer required boiling, which killed off harmful bacteria, making beer the safer choice.

Trade boomed at weekends, especially Mondays for the livestock market. The Bell was perfectly placed for the bullock sales, held in what is now the Broadway.  On Sunday evenings, the town was full of visitors from across the UK, most in a 'happy' state. Pubs were male-orientated; a woman's presence was a sign of lost respectability. From the pubs, beerhouses and market crowds nymphs of the pave found customers.

Before the Priory Road police station gained a courtroom, pubs and inns hosted the Petty Sessions. Most sittings tried at least one person for being drunk and disorderly. Offenders were often found lying senseless in the street; those still upright were ready for a fight.

Women appeared in the dock too. In 1840, Elizabeth Negus said John White threw her into a pond; in truth she and her husband were drunk and she fell in. Eleanor Bell was drunk in the Cherry Tree in Merrylands in 1907, then fell in Woolpack Lane, spilling a basket that contained two bottles of liquor.

Pubs were creative in attracting customers. In 1797, surgeon John Fryer attended the Unicorn, promising 'the utmost care and diligence will be paid in fractures and dislocations'. The Fountain hosted the Royal Albert Cricket Club in 1840.

The Golden Lion welcomed the annual meeting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association in 1852. After discussing grisly cases and operations, the gentlemen enjoyed 'a sumptuous dinner, consisting of every delicacy of the season'. In 1851, the Parrot displayed a whale, a monster caught at Kings Lynn, sobering many a staggering pub-tourer. 

The Parrot, Market Hill, St Ives, c1900.

By 1887 the Parrot's publican, widow Sarah Burbidge (50), kept exotic parrots worth £3 each (today £300) in the bar. And every Monday in 1863 the White Horse exhibited 'the Young Phenomenon', a celebrated trotting horse.

The Temperance Movement

Every action has a reaction, and the active pub trade in St Ives was no different. It's a paradox that while Samuel Mapperley kept the Bell lively with trade, the Wesleyan Methodists next door plastered posters urging townsfolk to turn their back on drink.

The temperance movement arrived in St Ives in the 1840s, determined to tackle poverty and disorder linked to alcohol. The newly formed Temperance Society wasted no time. They organised regular lectures, though the topics don't sound like crowd-pullers today, their efforts attracting thinly disguised scorn in a newspaper article of 1855.

In 1862, John de Fraine spoke on 'How to Get on in the World'. Mrs C L Balfour followed with earnest talks on 'Home Influence and Early Impressions' (1865) and 'Leisure Hours of Busy Lives and What the World has Gained by Them' (1868). Rev D Waters tackled 'Formation of the Stomach' (1872). The Band of Hope rallied local children against the temptations of alcohol. There was a grand brewing day in 1872, where the only thing brewed was water. 

'Fearful Quarrels, And Brutal Violence, Are the Natural Consequences
of the Frequent Use of the Bottle'.
One of George Cruikshanks' 1847 engravings, the collection entitled 'The Bottle'.

Miss Geeson ran a temperance hotel and refreshment rooms in Bridge Street in 1876, a Temperance Hotel following in Crown Street by 1901. Elizabeth Warnes took charge there, advertising wholesome lodgings for cyclists and footballers, until her shocking murder in 1913, one of the towns most sensational scandals.

By the early 1900s, the Society had fizzled out. Respectability had lost its Victorian shine, wages were rising and new entertainments like sport and cinema drew bigger crowds than any temperance movement. In St Ives, the pint outlasted the poster.

To read more instalments about this house, click the Bell. To view stories of other interesting houses and their residents in St Ives in the style of David Olusoga's BBC television programme, click A House Through Time. To access more topics on the social history of St Ives, its resident and the surrounding area, click St Ives 100 Years Ago.