GRIFFYDAM HISTORY

‘The Rising Sun’ was located on the plot marked by the arrow on the 1806 enlosure map. This was on the junction of Top Road and The Tentas and occupied the end of the property now known as 27 Top Road.

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Thomas Upton purchased a cottage and stable on the plot in 1829 and a remaining stable in 1831. He is shown in the Ashby de la Zouch licensing records as owning the Rising Sun Beer House from 1878 to 1890 and landlord in 1880/81. However, the newspaper article below infers it was opened as an inn prior to 1869 but because it was listed as a Beer House it did not appear in the earlier licensing records.   From 1891 to 1897 it was owned by Andrew Tugby.

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Landlords:-

??                                     Jonas Knight                                

1878                                 Joseph Freeman (commited suicide - see below)

1878                                 Mary Freeman                              

Mid 1879 to Mid 1880      George Powdrill                              

Mid 1882 to Mid 1885       John Chambers                              

Mid 1886 to Mid 1893       William Batson                                   

Mid 1893 to Mid 1897       William Baker                                

1901                                 Frederick H Walker                         

1905                                 William Baker (Licence expired)                 

1908                                 Closed 

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The Rising Sun lost its licence and was closed in 1908 as it was deemed by the Licencing Authority as structurally unsuitable.

 

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Melton Mowbray Mercury & Uppingham News June 25th 1908

LEICESTERSHIRE LICENSING AUTHORITY

The Rising Sun, Worthington (Griffydam) Supt. Lockton said this was an ante-1869 house. There was one license to every 119 persons in the village, the licenses numbering eight (this would have included Pegg’s Green). The nearest to the house were The Griffin, 286 yards; the Red Lion, 352 yards and the Traveller’s Rest, 250 yards. The house was structurally unsuitable, there being insufficient accommodation for the tenant and customers. The magistrates refused the license.

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Leicester Journal – July 5th 1878

Suicide – An inquest was held at The Red Lion Inn, Griffydam, before Mr. Deane, Coroner on 28th Ult, on the body of Joseph Freeman, 53 years of age, who was found dead in a field by Sarah Haywood with his throat cut. Mr. Donovan, Surgeon said that he had attended the deceased for general debility, and he was in a despondent state, suffering from congestion of the lungs. Upon examining the body he found a wound extending the length of the lower jaw, but not deep except along the larynx, which was about two thirds severed. From the appearance of the cut, he had no doubt it was self inflicted. Deceased kept the Rising Sun. Sarah Haywood said that on going to the spring to fetch a bucket of water (Chalybeate Spring near the brook), she saw a hat and some blood on the ground in a field adjoining the road, and on looking about, saw the body in the brook. Cheatle Smedley being at Griffydam that day, and hearing that a man was in the brook, went thither, and found the body of deceased lying sideways in the water. He and another lifted him out, and found that his throat was cut, and a razor lying about a yard and a half from the bank side. -  The jury returned a verdict to the effect that the deceased cut his throat with a razor, not being at the time in a sound state of mind.

 

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