The Rose Inn, Wokingham

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The Rose Inn, Wokingham
(the Old Rose Inn and the New Rose Inn and Ye Olde Rose)

The Sign of the Rose has been used as the name of inns in England since the 15th century War of the Roses. The first Rose Inn in Wokingham was on the north side of the market place, where it had been an inn since about 1634.

The Rose Inn became famous during the 18th and 19th centuries, due to a poem written about the beautiful barmaid. Taking shelter at the Rose during a storm in 1726, writers Alexander Pope, John Gay, Jonathan Swift and John Arbuthnot wrote a ballad “Molly Mogg – the fair maid of the Inn” to landlord John Mogg’s beautiful daughter Molly, as if from a lovelorn swain, supposedly Edward Standen, the young lord of Arborfield. (15 verses of drunken rhyme – you can find it on several websites).

According to the website, pubwiki.co.uk, devoted to the history of British pubs, The Rose Inn, in Market Place, Wokingham was run by my 5th great grandfather John Chaplin for 20 years in the 1700s.

In 1752, 5x great grandfather John Chaplin took over the lease from Molly Mogg and her sister Sarah, who had run the Inn since the bankruptcy of their brother in 1734 and their father’s death in 1736. Molly died in 1766, a spinster - her obituary named her as "Mary Mogg" and described her as "advanced in years but in her youth a celebrated beauty and toast, possessed of a good fortune that she has left among her relations". When the lease was to be renewed in 1772, the landlord John Griffin wanted to increase the rent but John decided that the increase was too much.

He then acquired a building in Peach St, Wokingham and opened it as the New Rose Inn, where he stayed for 15 years. On 8 Nov 1787, John Chaplin died after a long illness (“which he bore with great patience and resignation”). In his will, dated 1 August 1787, John desired to be “interred in the parish church of Wokingham aforesaid under the floor of the middle aisle where my former wife Dorothy Chaplin was laid” (and for his present wife, Hannah, too, when her time came). I don’t know if he got his wish and lies under the aisle All Saints Wokingham, but I would love to find out.

His widow Hannah ran the New Rose Inn, until she was able to purchase the Old Rose Inn in Market Place in 1788. She closed the New Rose and re-named the Old Rose to the Rose Inn and ran it until she retired in 1797. Hannah Chaplin died on 4 March 1800 and that was the end of the family association with the Rose Inn at that time. (John and Hannah’s only son William Chaplin had been apprenticed as a Brazier in Reading, and by 1800 was established in Newbury).

About 1844, the licensee, John Wise, moved the Rose Inn to its current site on the opposite side of the Market Place, which was originally two 15th century houses. Post-WW2, until 2021, it was known as Ye Olde Rose.

Meanwhile, John and Hannah’s granddaughter Elizabeth Mary Chaplin had married George Collis and moved to the Whistley Paper Mill between Hurst and Twyford, near Reading. Four of their children migrated to the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria, leaving their older two brothers in England. George Thomas Collis stayed in Hurst as a blacksmith, and his younger brother John obtained a position as a clerk in the Registry of the Bishop of London.

I was quite astonished when I was researching the children of John Collis and found his son, Ted at the Rose Inn in the 1911 census.

Almost 100 years on from Hannah’s death, in the 1891 and 1901 census, the Rose Inn (in the post-1844 location) was being run by William Churchman and his wife Jane (nee Penstone). Sadly, William died in 1902, and his widow continued to run the pub. On 2 Jan 1909, Jane Churchman married Edmund William (Ted) Collis and they ran the pub together until Ted’s death in Dec 1919 and Jane continued as the licensee until her death in 1925.

Ted Collis was son of John Collis and the great-great grandson of John Chaplin and second wife Hannah. He was my 1st cousin 3 times removed.

I do wonder if Ted or his immediate family knew about the connection to John Chaplin and the Rose Inn. His father John Collis had moved away from Berkshire before his 1853 marriage and lived in Esher Surrey until his death in 1918.

John’s brother Edmund (my 2xgreat grandfather) had left England in the 1860s for New South Wales.

This is part of the family tree –

John Chaplin (c1722-1787) married(1764) Hannah Bower (c1725-1800)
William Chaplin (1764-1808) married (1786) Mary Trumplett (1766-1838)
Elizabeth Mary Chaplin (1799-1838) m(1823) George Collis (1791-1877)
John Collis (1829-1918) m(1853) Dorothy Hatchman (1833-1912)
Edmund William Collis (1863-1919) m(1909) Jane Churchman(1858-1925)

Edmund Collis (1831-1889) m (1859) Catherine Harwood (1839-1914)
William R Collis (1861-1922) m(1888) Laura Martin (1864-1937)
Cecil AH Collis (1893-1967) m(1926) Mabel Page (1897-1972)
Laurence Collis (1929-2020) m(1959) Elaine
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The original Rose Inn has been replaced by a building occupied by Boots, near the corner of Broad St and Rose Street, in the Market Place. Across the Place on the edge of Peach St is the “new” Rose Inn (from the1840s) and now reopened as the Rose Inn. The New Rose Inn in Peach St (1772-1788) was a few yards along Peach St, now replaced by a building that at one time was Marks and Spencer.

[ElizabethHerts]

How fascinating!

We were there just yesterday as Wokingham is our nearest town! We have lived here for less than three years but have visited for a while as our daughter and family live here. Wokingham and Peach Place have undergone huge redevelopment.


https://www.mcmullens.co.uk/local-pub/rose/

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We spent a little time in Wokingham in 2018, stayed at the Emmbrook Inn, as OH's family also had lived in that part of Wokingham and had associations with the Dog and Duck. We had spent some time in the Hurst area checking out the graveyard and where Wards Cross used to be. It was pouring rain and a Sunday, so we did not have a chance to check out All Saints. It's definitely on my list for next visit.

[Merry]

A really interesting story! I feel it's very possible there was knowledge of the pub connection, despite the length of time and number of generations between. I don't have any stories like that, but I know others do.

(I was horrified to realise it's been 11 years since we discovered the connection in our trees, when I saw Mary Trumplett's name recorded above!)

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11 years Merry ! we have been researching a long time.

A little while ago, I found the Will of Mary's sister Elizabeth Trumplett who died in 1834. She left the blacksmithy at Wards Cross and all the land etc associated and the business there (run for her by Thomas Brent) with it to her niece Elizabeth Mary Collis and asked that Thomas Brent be kept on to run the business. After he death, all was to be divided between her children. She also left 50 pounds for Elizabeth Marys son George Thomas Collis to be apprenticed to a trade.

As Elizabeth Mary Collis died in 1838, and Thomas Brent in 1855 (he also left legacies to the Collis children, including the bulk of his estate to George Thomas, his friend). These legacies may have been the means for the family to migrate to Australia and set up their own businesses here. (Not George Thomas, though, he stayed on in Hurst as a blacksmith with his father, George Collis)

I also found that Elizabeth Mary Collis' children were left a legacy from her great aunt Elizabeth Mary Mollony (formerly Trash, nee Chaplin).

I love working on my Collis family and their ancestors, between Hampshire and Berkshire, there is such a lot of information available!