Some history of the Black Horse Inn at Atwick in the East Riding of Yorkshire

The Black Horse Inn has for generations traded on the edge of The Green, facing those travelling south along the old road to Hornsea. An ideal location for both tavern and blacksmith's shop in order to afford service to those making their way along this route. For the latter part of Queen Victoria's reign these roles were under one business run by the Sedman family.

Atwick : Map extract showing the location of the Black Horse Inn [1892]
© Crown Copyright. Reproduced with kind permission of the National Library of Scotland under the Creative Commons Attribution licence.

The Black Horse Inn, along with the adjacent smithy, can be seen on this map extract published in 1892. Writing for the Hull Daily Mail three years later, Harwood Brierley mentioned the smithy, probably as he called into the Black Horse for refreshment during a walk from Hornsea to Skipsea. He described the scene around The Green, with its "red pan-tiled roof, snow-white fronted and light pink washed cottage walls and green-painted or neatly grained woodwork, is one of the most pleasing villages in Holderness - a village celebrated for its breed of hackneys. It occupies a slight depression where five roads converge, and has rookery, a cross, church, a village green, little inn, and odd-looking windmill with a movable boxhead. At the corner of the Bewholme Road is a busy wheelwright's shop, and on the broad grassy side of the same road you perhaps may see waiting for him a number of gigantic tree trunks, which the village children are using for a see-saw." As the cottages, built at various angles, he exclaimed: "Oh, see them in May, these cottages, when wreathed with lilacs and laburnums all in full blossom, and see them again in June and July when they are smothered with scented roses." Clearly, the writer was enchanted by Atwick as he sipped his beer sitting in front of the Black Horse Inn. His description of "little" matches the size of the premises shown on the map above. The Black Horse would, in subsequent years, be extended into the neighbouring property. Harwood Brierley clearly stepped inside the house because he wrote: "the Black Horse Inn, with its old benches, cosy fireside, yellow square tiled floor, and cages on the walls where singing canaries and throstles live out their allotted span. Here in rural attitudes sit the undemonstrative swains, each wearing a ring of solid silver, and each with fat palms clapped on his knees; and there are all the evidences that "Attick" is about as slumberous as an attic, and that the Beeford 'bus, when it passes through, must make the greatest stir of the week." ¹

Atwick : Black Horse Inn and Smithy [c.1920]
© Image from author's photographic archive. DO NOT COPY

Probably captured in the early 20th century, this image shows both the Black Horse Inn and the adjacent smithy, including somebody working outside. Note that, by this period, the Black Horse was selling John Smith's Tadcaster Ales. This scene would have been familiar to those living here in the Victorian years.

In the mid-19th century it was Robert Pool who was recorded as blacksmith and innkeeper of the Black Horse.² He was a local man, his wife Hannah hailed from Aike. The trade from the smithy was seemingly good as their son, Thomas, also worked alongside him. He also took on an apprentice named David Smith, a young man from Seaton. Following the relatively early death of the blacksmith, Hannah Pool, as widow, took over the licence for a brief spell before it was transferred to the horse dealer and farrier, William Westoby, at the brewster sessions held on September 4th, 1856.³ Hannah Pool, along with her youngest children, moved into a neighbouring cottage.

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At the time of the licence handover, the adjoining cottage was occupied by the Wright family, the head of the household being the agricultural labourer, George Wright. His son, Jefferson, worked as a boot and shoe maker. He acted in a most peculiar fashion early on the morning of October 4th, 1858, when he entered the pub and stole a quantity of wearing apparel, the property of Harrietta Barff, the servant girl. She heard a noise as he made his way into the premises via a window. Though early, it was light enough for her to recognise Jefferson Wright. Frightened, she ran into the bedroom occupied by Mary Westoby, the publican being away that night. Wright then came into the main bedroom and, going directly to the bedside, opposite to Harrietta Barff, placed his hands on the face of Mary Westoby, who thereupon gave a loud scream. The servant girl told her who it was and she then rose to procure assistance. The boot and shoe maker went back into the girl's room, and stole her clothes. These were later found in a garden behind Mr. Lennard's farm yard. Jefferson Wright was subsequently arrested and at Leven was committed for trial.⁴ Curiously, on checking the Criminal Registers, I found that he was acquitted. However, in October 1866 he was charged by George Mason Gale, resident of Atwick Hall, when he "entered an outhouse for an unlawful purpose." On that occasion he was committed to the house of correction, where he served one month with hard labour.⁵

William and Mary Westoby had moved on by 1867. The couple relocated to Routh where they kept the Nag's Head Inn.⁶ In 1867 the Black Horse Inn was run by William Dunn, a fact deduced by a court settlement in which he agreed to pay an outstanding debt to the Hull spirit merchant, Henry Foster.⁷ I am not sure if William Dunn was skilled wielding a hammer as he had earlier been a horse-breaker. He is not recorded as a blacksmith in the census of 1871, by which time Willis Sedman was listed as a smith but living close to the vicarage.⁸ Perhaps, he walked the short distance along Church Lane to work the anvil here? Whatever, he would later move into the Black Horse Inn and maintain the tradition of the publican being also a blacksmith.

Atwick : The Black Horse [June 2023]
© Image from author's photographic archive. DO NOT COPY

Willis Sedman was born in Barmston in 1835. He was almost certainly apprenticed to the blacksmith Thomas Shaw at Muston.⁹ His wife, Rachel, hailed from Foston in North Yorkshire. The couple would remain at the Black Horse Inn for the rest of the 19th century. Each year they would apply for an extension of one hour to their licence for the annual village sports day. Willis Sedman became an overseer for North Holderness.

The Black Horse Inn would be used for a coroner's inquest should a fatal accident occur in the locality. In August 1901, Mr. H. R. Jackson assembled a jury inside the pub on the death of Joseph Needham, a 67 year-old farmer residing in Atwick. On a Saturday morning he was driving a horse and cart containing a plough, to one of the fields between Atwick and Hornsea, when the horse suddenly bolted and galloped on the side of the road over a heap of stones. He was accompanied by his son, George, who told the coroner that the heap of stones caused the cart to jolt and his father, who was seated on the fore-end of the cart with his feet on the shafts, fell almost immediately, a wheel passing over his head. William Rispin, a shepherd in the employ of George Gale, was a witness to the accident. He told the coroner and jury that Joseph Needham pulled at the reins but could not stop the horse, the stones causing him to fall on the shafts between the horse and the cart. As he fell to the ground, the wheel passed over his head, crushing his skull in a horrible manner. The jury returned a verdict of accidental death. There was much sadness in the village as Joseph Needham was a popular character.¹⁰

Willis Sedman, publican for a generation, died in January 1908, his wife predeceasing him during July 1901. The couple, along with their son John, were buried up the lane at the Church of Saint Lawrence.

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In more recent times Arthur Norman was a keen supporter and sponsor of the Bewholme and Atwick Cricket Club. On giving up the Black Horse in 1994 he was made a Life Vice-President of the club. A popular publican, he once dressed up as Elliott Ness when the Atwick Village Float was based on "The Untouchables" for the Hornsea Carnival of 1988.¹¹ Arthur Norman was a key member of the team that attempted to win the "Best-Kept Village" competition. Not only did he tend to window boxes on the pub frontage but he mowed the grass on The Green, almost to bowling standard!¹² Atwick won the title in 1991.

Tony Myers, along with his wife Jen, moved to the Black Horse in January 1994 after running the Marine Hotel at Hornsea for just over a decade. It was Tony Myers who championed guest ales at the pub and he won CAMRA awards during the couple's spell at the White Horse.¹³

Atwick : Advertisement for the Black Horse [1999]
Extract from Page 19 of the Beverley Guardian published on Friday November 19th, 1999.

Licensees of the Black Horse Inn

1850 - Robert Pool
1856 - Hannah Pool
1856 - William Westoby
1867 - William Dunn
1881 - Willis Sedman
1988 - Arthur Norman
1994 - Tony Myers
Note : this is not a complete list of licensees for this pub. The dates of early licensees are sourced from trade directories, census data, electoral rolls, rate books and newspaper articles. Names taken from trade directories may be slightly inaccurate as there is some slippage from publication dates and the actual movement of people.