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The original Squirrel Inn, seen above, was demolished after the present one was built in about 1952/53. Some say that the old pub had burnt down but although there had been a fire, caused by sunlight shining through a window causing the felt on a table skittles board to catch on fire, it had been extinguished without causing too much damage. However, Ushers, the brewery owning the pub at the time, already had plans to build a new pub in the existing orchard. The last landlord of the old pub and the first of the new one was Jack Churchill. The building of the new pub was undertaken by Charlie Turner's building firm. The foreman was Bob Morgan. The old pub was sited where the present car park is. It ran parallel with the top car park wall which then encircled the whole garden. The building was constructed using flint and had a slate roof. It consisted of a bar room with blue stone flooring and a lounge. The toilets were outside where there was also a small dairy with a hay loft above. The dairy building is now our holiday cottage.
Carnival floats became a yearly event at the Squirrel Inn with various themes such as this Captain Pugwash float. In 1973 there was a float depicting the old tradition of the burning of the Ashen Faggot, an event which had died out in the 1960's. The faggot was held together with 6 bands and was expected to burn for about an hour. At the suggestion of John Snell, they burnt a faggot on the float but unfortunately the burning lasted for just 5 minutes because the faggot was so dry!
In 1974, the year after the Ashen Faggot carnival float, the tradition of the burning of the Ashen Faggot was resurrected. Mike Turner made the first two faggots, which were held with 6 bands then the following year made the first 12 band faggot since the tradition had died out. Mike says that the longest that a faggot has burned for was 6 hours and 5 minutes. He also remembers the year when only 6 people turned up for the event. However this was only because everyone else had been snowed in! Mike still makes our faggots. Carla and Anthony would like to thank John Snell, Mike Turner and Pete Saunders for their help in writing this brief history of the Squirrel Inn. If you have any information, stories or photographs that you think could be included on this website, please contact us.
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