The Bull Inn

A Memory of Swyre.

My paternal grandparents ran the Bull Inn at Swyre from either 1939 or 1940 to 1950 Their name was Webb. They moved there from the outskirts of London where they had previously ran a pub in Caterham Surrey. My grandmother came from the Bridport area and was a Symes. My father joined the commandos and my Mother was advised to move from Caterham as we lived next door to an airodome. So at six weeks old I, with my older brother, and mother were made evacuees . One of the places we lived was at the Bull Inn, Swyre and my brother and I lived there perminately from 1945 to the time my grandparents gave up the tenantcy in 1950 my Mother often spoke about the U S army chaps filling the bars and as she was a strewberry blonde they called her Red. I remember being at the bull. The water had to be pumped up by hand to a water tank in the loft. My uncle Sid was very good at this and always topped up the tank when he visited. The tank took over an hour to fill. I remember being told that there use to be another old pub there, but on a slightly different angle and not on the same ground. The new pub was built and it opened the very next day that the old pub closed. The new pub was built over a water spring, and there was a trapdoor in the floor in what was know as the private bar, it was situated under the piano. The old pub was pulled down and the Bull Inn had a big garage there which I think has now been turned into accommodation, certainly we had electricity from a generator which had to be started every evening. Behind the tall trees on the left of your photo was a sewerage tank which had to be emptied from time to time. As your picture shows there were two mines out on the lawn. After the war my uncle or my father cut the lawn with a scyth. A local farmer came every year to cut the grass in the field attached to the Inn ...we as children played in the hay,....making houses of it etc etc before a hayrick was made in the far corner of the field and camping was allowed. We had the only phone in the village and the villagers came to use it during opening times, I think it was an old pay phone. The driveway was made of old gravel, with both big and smal stones and very rough. The pub was owned by Devonish whose lorries called regularly.

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