The Tithe Maps reveal an alcoholic corner of London

Following on from my piece, earlier in the week, when I posted the Press Release issued by TheGenealogist, I’ve now had time to play a bit with the tithe apportionment records and accompanying maps to see what I could find.

In the parish of Ealing, in Middlesex, I came across the land owned by Sir Felix Booth, a wealthy Gin distiller in Old Brentwood High Street. His family had, you may realize from the name, been the founders of Booths Gin back in 1740. Its a brand that is still being marketed to this day. Sir Felix was pretty wealthy; indeed he had enough money to have financed John Ross’ expedition to find the Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean.

Booth’s distillery was in this part of London, next to the Thames. From the tithe apportionment document, accessed on TheGenealogist website, we can see that Sir Felix owned and occupied quite a bit of the land in Brentwood,  including plot 230 that accounted for his distillery. There was also a house which may have been occupied by one of the family, a John Booth. If we turn to the census collection, also on TheGenealogist, John Booth is listed as being 35 and of Independent means in the 1841 census of Old Brentwood High Street.

To my amusement I found that the Booth’s distillery, was cheek by jowl with a brewery and a large number of pubs and hotels meaning that there were many places to get a tipple in this neighbourhood. A feature of this particular map was that the surveyor had chosen to write some of the names of the pubs on the plan so that we can see that within a few yards were The Barge Aground, The Bull, The Running Horse, The Half Moon and Seven Stars, The Royal Hotel, The Drum, The Red Lion and also The King George!

A bit further west, on the High Street, was the Lock Up House and I have to wonder at how many ended up there after a pub crawl down this particular 1840 London street?

 

To view the Tithe maps for Middlesex, Surrey, Buckinghamshire and Leicestershire go to TheGenealogist.co.uk

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