Chequers Inn, Beaumont Road
The Chequers at 11 Beaumont Road, Headington Quarry is a stone building, part of which dates from the eighteenth century. It has a sunken garden that was created from a disused stone quarry.
This pub was extensively remodelled in 1930, as can be seen by comparing the photograph above with the postcard below showing the Chequers in 1916 when it belonged to Hall's Brewery. Its front wall was taken down, the club room (formerly the Free School) on the right was demolished, and it was greatly extended on the right-hand side and given a new entrance.
The engraving below shows a similar view of the Chequers in the 1920s.
The engraving below shows the Chequers viewed from Saccy Horwood's pit in 1820:
Before the First World War, the Chequers was at the centre of Quarry village life, and Quarry’s first post box was set in its wall.
It is interesting that in 1807 St Andrew’s Church opened its first school not in Old Headington but here at the Chequers (in its outbuilding, shown on the right of the above 1920s engraving). This was the home of the Free School from 1807 to 1874. The Master was James Waring, but George Phillips is recorded as being a schoolmaster when he and his wife Mary had their first seven children baptised at St Andrew’s Church between 1816 and 1826, and then as a publican at the baptism of his last two children in 1828 and 1830, which implies a connection between the school and the pub.
After the Free School closed in 1874 its former building was used as a club-room, where the Quarry morris-dancers practised. That club-room was pulled down in 1930, around the time Quarry got its own village hall in Margaret Road.
In 1847 the landlord of the Chequers was the stone-cutter Thomas Goodgame, but he died of paralysis at the age of 67 on 28 February that year, and his wife Charlotte Goodgame took it over. The Headington Rate-Book for December 1850 shows that the Chequers was then owned by the brewers Henry Hall & Co and occupied by Charlotte Goodgame. It is described simply as a “House & Garden” with a rateable value of £7 and a gross estimated value of £10 per annum. Mrs Goodgame can be seen living alone at the Chequers, aged 70, at the time of the 1851 census.
On 5 April 1859 the newly formed Headington Quarry Cricket Club had a “first-rate supper” provided at the Chequers by Stephen Goodgame, Thomas & Charlotte's son.
In the 1850s auctions were held in the Chequers Inn of both local cottages and of crops grown in the Quarry Field (behind the present St Andrew's School).
In the 1870s local inquests were held at the Chequers.
The Chequers was always a family pub, and remained in the hands of three local families (the Goodgames, Coopers, and Meesons) for over a hundred years. The early landlords (as in most other Headington pubs) combined working at the pub with other occupations: Thomas Goodgame was also a stonemason, while Thomas Cooper was also a hay and straw dealer.
In 1997 the pub was given a £70,000 facelift.
By 2003 the pub had been purchased by the Spirit Group.
By December 2006 the owners were Scottish & Newcastle. The pub closed in January 2007, but was reopened by the following November. That brewery then put the Chequers up for sale for £550,000, advertising it as having “development/ refurbishment potential”.
It was bought by Steve Jenkins, landlord of the Red Lion in Old Marston, and reopened after refurbishment on Saturday 12 April 2008.
The “Royal India” Indian & Bangladeshi Cuisine & Takeaway opened at the Chequers in 2011. In early 2016 the Aziz Restaurant moved in for a few years, followed by the Monsoon restaurant.
In April 2022 a planning application for a first-floor side extension was submitted by Steve Jenkins but was never decided (22/00875/FUL): the heritage statement under Documents gives more details about the history of the pub.
In April 2023 the Chequers was put up for sale with a guide price of £950,000 either as a going concern or “as a possible redevelopment, subject to planning”. The business was liquidated on 21 June 2023 following a deficiency of £54,884 over the seven previous years.
On 20 December 2023 a planning application was approved to convert it into a single large private house (23/01869/FUL), and the pub closed permanently six days later on Boxing Day 2023.
Morris Dancers at The Chequers: above in 1899 (Historic England CC73/00610)
and below on Boxing Day 2007
Some landlords of the Chequers up to 1976 |
|
By 1847 to 1885 |
Thomas Goodgame (Listed as Landlord in 1847) Mrs Charlotte Goodgame (Landlady 1847–1851+) Stephen Goodgame senior (Landlord by 1859–c.1880) Stephen Goodgame junior (Landlord c.1880–1883) |
1887–1913 |
John Cooper (or Cowper) (Landlord 1887–1901) Mrs Emily Cooper (Landlady 1902–1913) |
1914–1947 |
Walter Meeson (Landlord 1914–1936) The 1921 census shows Walter (49), described as a licensed victualler, living at the pub with his wife Maud (47) and his twin children Arthur (17), who was a bricklayer's labourer for Benfield & Loxley, and Maud, who was a shop assistant for Mr Skinner in St Giles', Oxford. Also living with them was Walter's sister-in-law Miss Sarah Baker Wall (58). Walter was landlord at the Chequers for 22 years, and died there at the age of 60 in 1936 and was buried at Holy Trinity churchyard on 13 July. Mrs Maud Meeson (Landlady 1936–1947) |
1949–1951 |
Cyril D. Benefield |
1951–1976
|
Charles F. Eden (Landlord 1950–1960) |
