The road passing through Kineton is a fairly narrow route and not a major road so one assumes that this pub's name suggests it is merely between Temple Guiting and Guiting Power rather than being midway between two larger towns. In the mid-19th century the house was owned and kept by the Hamblett family. In the census of 1851 Coates-born Thomas Hamblett was recorded as a 31 year-old agricultural labourer and beer house keeper. He lived on the premises, thought to date from the 17th century, with his wife Ann and their four children. If the record of beer house is correct, then the building pre-dates its use as a pub for some considerable period. Also living in the household, according to the 1851 census, was Ann's father Richard Slaite, an 83 year-old shepherd who hailed from Lower Swell. Interestingly, a neighbouring property was also shown as a beer house and occupied by Ann Wood. At this time the beer in the Halfway House was almost certainly produced with grain supplied by a neighbouring maltster called William Dowdeswell, a farmer of some 300 acres who operated a malthouse in the village. The household expanded somewhat during the 1850's as Thomas and Ann Hamblett had four more children and, having secured inn status for the Halfway House, the publican started to take in lodgers to supplement income. Thomas later went on to farm some 250 acres of land himself, helped no doubt by his sons. He was still recorded as the owner of the public house in the early 1890's. However, by 1895 it was being kept by Henry Hopkins. He was certainly the publican when the Halfway House was documented as the property of Corpus Christi College, not such an unusual arrangement as it might first appear. Many educational and ecclesiastical institutions held considerable rural estates in earlier times. Henry Hopkins was born in Upper Swell around 1867 and kept the Halfway House with his wife Sarah who hailed from Moreton in Marsh. The couple had earlier kept the White Lion Inn at Stow-on-the-Wold. The Halfway House was rented by the Donnington Brewery for many years before the company eventually bought the freehold in 1975.
© Copyright. Image supplied by Digital Photographic Images.

It looks like a cycling party has called into the Plough Inn for a well earned glass of ale during the late Edwardian period. The image shows the rear of the building; the pub fronts the old road connecting Stow-on-the-Wold and Tewkesbury, a highway that has brought many a weary traveller through the hamlet tucked away in the Cotswold Hills. Ford forms part of the parish of Temple Guiting, a name that reminds us that it was once owned by the Knights Templar. The building is thought to date from the 16th century but has only traded as a pub since the mid-Victorian period. There is a lovely weathered sign on the front of the building. It reads... "Ye weary travellers that pass by, With dust and scorching sunbeams dry, Or be numb'd with snow and frost, With having these bleak Cotswold's crost, Step in and quaff my nut brown ale - Bright as ruby's mild and stale, Twill make your laging trotters dance, As nimble as the suns of France, Then ye will own ye men of fense. That nature was better spent sixpence."  The pub's official website claims that the building once served as the local courthouse and that the cellars were once used as cells for sheep rustlers. An unusual feature of the pub's interior is a pull-across bar device to reinforce the door - a relic of the building's legal past when no one could enter the court once it was in session. George Fox was the licensee of the Plough Inn in the early 1850's. Born in Stow-on-the-Wold in 1809, the innkeeper was also a farmer of 32 acres of land. He kept the Plough Inn with his wife Mary; the couple employed two servants. Household and farm duties were no doubt allotted to their son John and five daughters. Employing local girl Ann Pool as a servant, Isaac and Sarah Busson kept the Plough Inn in the latter part of Queen Victoria's reign. Sarah Busson took over the licence of the pub following the death of her husband. At this time the Plough Inn was owned by Lord Sudeley. The property was later sold to Hugh Andrews Esq. Sarah Busson died in 1901 but had already been succeeded as licensee by Jesse Wiggett. The Worcestershire-born former road labourer kept the Plough Inn with his wife Ellen. Employing Caroline Hale and Fanny Bedwell as servants, the couple were assisted by son David. He later took over the licence.
© Copyright. Image supplied by Digital Photographic Images.

“He who has not been at a tavern knows not what a paradise it is.
O holy tavern! O miraculous tavern!
 holy, because no carking cares are there, nor weariness, nor pain;
and miraculous, because of the spits, which themselves turn round and round!”
Pietro Aretino
Pub Quotations

History and Information on the Public Houses of Gloucestershire with Licensees and Newspaper Articles PLUS Genealogy Connections