The Moletrap pub has been a popular and well-known local landmark for centuries. As the only pub in the country called “The Moletrap”, the story about it being built on the proceeds of a new type of moletrap has often been quoted by locals and journalists. Its future is currently in doubt (it closed on New Year’s Day 2019), so this seems a good time to look back into its story more closely.
The pub is located on the south-east corner of Tawney Common amongst a small cluster of houses known as Woodhatch. Next door there is a 17th century house now split into two cottages, then Woodhatch Farm and, a little further away, a pair of brick cottages built soon after 1900 to replace some earlier ones nearer the farm. Chapman and Andre’s map of 1777 shows a block of buildings in the right place, as does an estate map of 1749.
Until 1851, Tawney Common really was a common: open grassland with scattered trees and bushes and a small wood in the middle. It would have been grazed by cattle and/or sheep belonging to local farmers, with gates rather than cattle grids at various key locations to stop the animals straying off the common. Around the edges of the common were cottages, most of them with associated allotments. These can all be seen on a map of 1850, which names Samuel Threader as the occupier both of the building now called the Moletrap, and also of an allotment or garden opposite.
In 1838, the Tithe Map shows the same situation, still with Samuel Threader as the occupier. Samuel left a will, which was quite unusual for someone who describes himself as a labourer. He must have been better-off than many of his farmworker neighbours, because he actually owned his house freehold – “a dwelling house and garden ground now in my occupation with all the appurtenances thereto belonging”. He left the building and land to his eldest son, also called Samuel, and the contents – furniture, clothes and, surprisingly, a silver watch – to his other son John. The residue, presumably cash, was to be used to pay for the funeral, and whatever remained was divided between John and his older sister Rebecca. Samuel’s wife Mary had already died some years before.
Samuel made the will in 1831, signing with a cross because he couldn’t write, and died in March 1840. The following year saw the first English census, which recorded the residents of each household, their ages and occupations. The census has been taken every 10 years ever since. Living in the house in 1841 were Samuel junior (aged 27)), his wife – another Rebecca – and 5-year-old Joseph, their only child. Significantly, Samuel’s occupation was given as “Mole Catcher”.
Traditionally molecatchers, armed with their own hand-made traps, were employed by landowners to rid them of the “little gentlemen in black velvet”. A large estate such as Hill Hall or Gaynes Park might employ their own full-time molecatcher; sometimes parish officials paid for them to be destroyed; and sometimes a molecatcher might add his skill to other agricultural work. He would be paid for each dead mole he could produce, and at certain times, when moleskin clothing was fashionable, he could sell the skins to a fur dealer.
Moles have never been a great fit for the fur trade because they’re so small – an adult measures only 4.3 to 6.3 inches long. The tiny pelts are cut into rectangles and sewn together into plates which are almost always dyed because natural colours are so variable, making it difficult to find a large number of matching pelts. The most common colour is dark grey or “taupe” (French for mole), but light grey, tan, black and even white have all been observed.
These plates are – or at least were – then made into coats or trousers requiring 500 pelts or more, the lining of winter gloves (fur side in), and a very soft felt for premium top hats. (Cheaper hats used rabbit while everyday hats used American beaver.) Above all, though, moleskin has always been associated with the fronts of waistcoats .
There is no hard evidence that Samuel Threader invented a new type of moletrap. Or if he did, he never took out a patent, which involved an expensive and complicated legal process. And he didn’t build the house: the maps show that it was already there. Its carpentry and design appear to date from the late 18th or early 19th century. But – Samuel did trap moles, which could be a lucrative source of income.
The 1851 census records Samuel simply as an “Ag lab” (agricultural labourer), with no mention of molecatching, although he was probably still using his skills. 1851 was a significant year in the history of Tawney Common. The Lord of the Manor, Sir William Bowyer-Smijth of Hill Hall, enclosed the common with hedges by a private act of parliament. He was at the time the sitting MP. His plan was to create a new farm and take advantage of the high price of corn at that time. This took a couple of years, but “New Farm” (later re-named Mount Farm by the Galloway family) was finished by 1853, a date carved on a post in the large barn. Sir William was by no means the only landowner to enclose former common land. Parliamentary enclosure had been going on since the 18th century, with no compensation for the cottagers who had lost their grazing rights and allotments.
But Samuel Threader retained his garden allotment because he owned it freehold, and continued to live in the same house. The newly created farm and the boom in agriculture probably helped to increase employment locally and perhaps put a few more pence into workers’ pockets. Samuel seems to have taken advantage of this potential market and by 1861 he is recorded as “Beer House Keeper”. In 1871, the property is described as a “Beershop” and named for the first time specifically as “Moletrap”. Samuel was living there with his wife Rebecca and 11-year-old grandson, another Samuel. Charles Doe and his family were living in “Cottage adjoining”, which may refer to the left-hand extension of the main building. It seems not to refer to the detached cottages next door, which are named as “Trapgate Cottages” and housed three families.
Samuel died in 1879 and Rebecca took over the licence. The photo below shows Rebecca (on the right) with her name as licensee. At that time only the passage and the room to the right were used as the pub. Rebecca carried on the business in her own name, no doubt with the help of her grandson Samuel, a farm labourer, and grand-daughter Ann. In 1891, 80-year-old Rebecca was being assisted at the beerhouse by a different grand-daughter, another Rebecca, probably the woman on the left in the photo. Grandson Samuel was still living there.
Rebecca finally died at 83 in 1894, having run the pub as a widow for 25 years. Her grandson Samuel took over the licence and it seems that half his extended family moved in. His widowed mother, his younger brother John, his married sister and her husband and child, and another niece all lived there with him. One of the nieces, Lilian Hull (nee Tarling), described in a letter what the Moletrap was like when she was there as a child.
“Saturday evening was always special. The men used to collect in the old tap room and have a ‘sing song’. Each man had a song of his own. One I remember was ‘Soldiers of the Queen’. Always sung by Mr John Summers, who was Game Keeper for many years in the Bitchett Wood. Another was ‘The Soldier who never returned’.
In those days there was a seat all round the wall of the tap room. In the seat on the left of the fireplace was a hole with a drawer under and some very heavy pennies which the men used to play pitch penny, also on one of the tables was drawn a shove halfpenny board. The halfpennies were worn smooth even in my childhood. Another thing they used to play was quoits, in the small meadow belonging to the house down the hill a little way on the left. If you don’t know what quoits are, they were round steel rings, sharp one side and they were thrown a certain way.
The house was open all day except Sunday. Anyone who could prove they had come over three miles could have refreshment on a Sunday morning.
Most men liked their beer in pewter mugs. China ones was also used. Glasses were for very special people and lived on a shelf in the passage way leading to the cellar at the back.”
Samuel Threader died unmarried in 1903 and his brother John, who until then had worked at the blacksmith’s in Theydon Mount, took over. In 1907 John fell foul of the Sunday trading law mentioned by Lilian – that only genuine travellers were allowed to be served.
The Chelmsford Chronicle reported that John Threader had been summoned before Ongar magistrates “for serving men with drink during prohibited hours”. Two men from Ivy Chimneys, two from Epping and one from Epping Upland were also summoned for being on licensed premises on a Sunday. The local policeman, PC Danes, reported that he had seen the landlord serve them out in the yard with one drink, and his niece with another. Jacob Miller, the farmer at New Farm, obviously wasn’t keen on the pub and said it was regular practice for men like these to visit the house on Sunday mornings, and they were nuisance to the neighbourhood – which was denied by Threader. Although the men all lived more than three miles away, it was decided that they were not bona fide travellers and had walked there specifically to get a drink. John was fined 10s, with 4s 6d costs, and the men were also fined.
John was the last Threader at the Moletrap. He sold it in 1910 and later worked as gamekeeper on the Suttons estate until his death in 1928.
The new landlord was a local man, John Dockerill, who took it over with his wife Sarah, but according to Lilian Tarling, the actual owner by then was the brewery. During John Dockerill’s time, the Essex Hunt used to meet outside the Moletrap a couple of times a year, in February and November. A photo of the meet in 1929 shows a mother from the cottages next door holding up a little child over the fence to see the spectacle. According to the late Doris Messinger, the child caught cold and later died. Little Catherine Tarling (a relative of Lilian Tarling) was buried in the tiny grave just inside the Tawney churchyard gates.
By 1933, there was a new landlord, 30-year-old James William Smith. His parents and younger sister lived there too and helped with the pub. In May 1936, James also had a problem with the Sunday trading laws and appeared in court . Pubs were allowed to start serving at noon, but two police officers visiting at 11.30am saw four men in the tap room playing at the pin table with glasses of beer nearby. Various excuses were made: that the beer was left over from the previous night (despite it still having a head), that it was only shandy, that the men had only gone there for ‘biscuits and a rest’, and that they were waiting until midday to drink it. Smith and one of the men, who was witnessed actually drinking his beer, pleaded guilty, but the others were let off. Interestingly, two of the men came from as far afield as Homerton in Hackney.
The Moletrap was in the newspaper again in 1939, when a fire was reported :
“Occupants of the Moletrap Inn, Stapleford Tawney, left their rooms early yesterday in their nightclothes when old beams over the fireplace in the bar parlour caught alight. People from adjoining cottages formed a bucket chain from the tap on the green outside to the house and got the fire under control.”
By then, James Smith’s mother Florrie had died, and his father Cornelius, a fishmonger turned “general dealer”, married Hilda Power, the daughter of the farmer at Woodhatch next door. It was just after WWII broke out, and she was 32 and Cornelius was 68! After both Cornelius and James had died, Hilda ran the pub herself for several years .
Arthur Bard (known as ‘Nip’) took over the pub in the 50s. It had a reputation even then for being in a remote and unexpected location. Arthur had a business card printed, claiming “It takes Radar to find it!” Radar had only been properly developed in the 1930s and it was acclaimed as an exciting new technology that helped us win the war. Nip himself had been in the army for a number of years before moving to the Moletrap. At this time the pub area was still tiny: a hatch at the end of the passage for the bar, and the small room to the right.
Nip died in 1967 and his wife Carol took over for a few years until a short-term manager was appointed, who lasted until John and Kit King arrived . The Kings opened the centre room to left of the passage, almost doubling the seating area, and started serving a limited choice of food. In the summer it was a popular choice for motor bikers, who could be heard roaring round the lanes at closing time. When the Kings retired, the brewery (McMullens by then) decided to sell. The new owners were Dave and Jean Kirtley. They expanded the food side of the business and, as a Free House, sourced a range of quality beers, much appreciated by their CAMRA fans. As business grew, and assisted by their sons Will and Jim, they built a larger kitchen with accommodation and extended the pub area into the left hand end. For many years the pub thrived, its quirky individualism, great beer and good fresh food appealing to its many fans.
Sadly in the last couple of years, a combination of ill-health, increasing age and bereavement made running the pub too difficult for the Kirtleys. After serving the local and wider community for 160 years, the Moletrap closed its doors on 1st January 2019.