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SWORD

Location:- as yet not accurately identified

Brewery or Owner:-unknown


Peter May's book "Medieval and Tudor Newmarket" has this one recorded on his C15 map, somewhere between Wellington Street and Market Street. In his "Newmarket 500 years ago" he has :

"In 1472, Arthur Greysson paid the sum of 11s.6d for the Sword Inn and lands, 'lately John Higham's', which John paid for '1 place in which he dwells and lands' in 1428."

also Peter May, in his "Newmarket 500 years ago" records that in 1472:
"Arthur Greysson, who in our roll is the landlord of the Griffin, the Saracen's Head and the Sword, by the time he died in 1479 had also acquired the Bull from Richard Motte; he left all four to his wife Margery.requesting her to pay the £92 still owing on the Saracen's Head and the Bull, and requiring the 'the said holding called le Boole with its appurtenances be annexed and joined to the aforesaid holding called le Gryffyn'."

One problem with much of the distant history of Newmarket is that although people's names and their various properties are often recorded, the exact location of these properties is not. This actually continues into the Victorian era

Peter May in his "Twenty Newmarket Wills 1439-1497". estimates it was probably around where W.H Smith and Scrivens are today (2019).
Peter May's "Newmarket Inventories 1662 to 1715" (required reading for Newmarket Local History) says that John Funston held from the lord of the manor the Sword and the Bell , being respectively to the west and east of Market Street.

The Sword was one of the inns recorded, by an eyewitness, as destroyed in the fire of 1683.

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© text Tony Pringle under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.