While the recent closure of the Three Horseshoes pub might lead you to believe it was the only pub in Brimpton, there have actually been a number over the years. We’ve already covered the Pineapple in Brimpton Common, but over on Hyde End Lane they also used to have their own public house, in the shape of the Horse and Jockey.

As the pub has now been converted to a residential home, it’s hard to find out much about its history – though we do know that all the way back in 1851 there were landlords living and working there. According to the ‘Brimpton Story’, back in the 1880s the pub also sold groceries.

Slightly ominously, it would appear that at the end of the 1800s the pub hosted at least one police inquest, as this extract from the Reading Mercury (20th July 1850) suggests:

An inquest was held on Thursday last, at the Horse and Jockey, Brimpton, before J. Alexander, esq. coroner, on view of the body of Albert Pocock, a boy in Kendrick’s Newbury Charity School, who met with his death in most melancholy manner, on Wednesday. 

He had a half-holiday, and was accompanying one of Mr. Lay’s men, named Copas, on his return from Ashford-Hill, where he had been delivering coals with a cart. On reaching Hyde-End, Brimpton, Copas looked round and saw that the boy, who had been walking by the side of the cart, had just fallen under the wheel; the man had not time to pull up before the wheel had passed over and completely crushed the poor boy’s head, who almost immediately expired.

The jury, after hearing the evidence, which clearly showed that no legal blame could be attached to any one, returned a verdict of Accidental death.”

Reading Mercury 20 July 1850

Sadly, the pub closed in the 1950s, which is when it was converted to a residential property.