Buckhurst Hill pub history index
Gold Diggers Arms, High road and Gladstone road, Buckhurst Hill
The building which began as the Gold-digger’s Arms (the photograph is from the book by Stephen Pewsey)
Provided by Lynn H Jones
The Gold Diggers Arms
This was situated on the corner of the High road and Gladstone road, where the
beginnings of St John’s Terrace and St John’s Court are now. According to
Stephen Pewsey, what later became the Red House was built in 1868 as a public
house, the Gold-digger’s Arms, supposedly by a miner returning from the
Australian goldfields. *
This is confirmed by the census of 1871 which states the Gold-digger’s Arms was
run by Charles Rayner, a publican who also ran the Title Deed in Queen's Road.
His wife was Mary and they had at that time five children; Sarah, the eldest
born in Forest Gate, and the others, Clara, John, Edward and Lucy, all born in
Buckhurst Hill, indicating that the family were in Buckhurst Hill by 1860.
In 1872 the building ceased to be a public house when it was purchased by
Nathanael Powell of Luctons as a school to train girls in domestic and laundry
work. *
References :
Pewsey, Stephen Chigwell and Loughton a Pictorial History Phillimore 1995
* Provided by Lynn H Jones
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