In Balsham a village story 1617-2017 we wrote about the pubs of Balsham, of which there were many! One of them was the Fox. Susan Plumb, a widow was licensee in 1904 and we’ve found the beautiful photo of her standing very proudly on the doorstep of the pub.
Susan Plumb outside the Fox.
The Fox was a seventeenth-century house, said to date from approximately 1648. It was originally built with a single room each side of a central chimney with an upper storey mainly in the roof. It was extended twice, once in the late eighteenth century and again in the early nineteenth century. The house consisted of a parlour, front shop, bar, tap room, kitchen, brewhouse, a cellar and three bedrooms. The property still retains its original cellar. It is situated on the old London to Newmarket Road (now known as Fox Road). It would seem to have had several names including The Rose and Crown in 1764, The Crown and Hounds from 1776 to 1777, Fox and Hounds from 1783 to 1823 and finally The Fox. It was also known as ‘the Susan Plumb cottage’ after the landlady of 1904.
Our article photo shows John Plumb, landlord of The Fox and Hounds outside the pub with his son, photographed in 1867.