Photo courtesy of Howard Beard

The King’s Head Inn, now Sinegar  House, was open by 1782 and  then  called the Three Horse Shoes.  Father and son, George and James Lugg followed each other as licensees from at least 1842 to 1863. Both had various other occupations, George  did some farming and in old age opened a grocer’s shop while James combined Inn keeping with butchery. From time to time public auctions were held at the Inn  and in 1843 five local cottages (two unoccupied) were put up for sale.

But another auction in 1865 was the Inn itself, the sale particulars were as follows; “for sale with a large club room and outbuildings situated in the main street of the town of Bisley, nearly opposite the old Market Place . The above may be converted into three houses at a small outlay.” The Inn was  indeed divided, half remained  a pub and the other half housed a blacksmith and his workshop. However the last landlord, Alfred Gardiner, a carpenter, with a wife and young family decided there was no future for him in Bisley and emigrated to America where he died in Oklahoma aged 77. The Inn then closed and the property was acquired by a builder, George Peglar and turned into a  “villa residence“. 

For a time it became the police station but by 1914 it had been bought by William Joseph Pull. He was a piano manufacturer from North London. Why was he in Bisley? One clue is that he married Emma Jane Peglar, daughter of George Peglar, one time owner of Sinegar Square. It’s a mystery how they met but Emma Jane brought all her children back to Bisley to be baptised.

Research by Juliet Shipman