The White Horse Inn
Hatching Green
By Rosemary Ross
Print of watercolour by Edith Salisbury of The White Horse, Hatching Green
LHS archives, cat.no. HC53
This seventeenth century building was at one time John Seabrook's 'mansion house' (according to Wheathampstead & Harpenden IV p.168) - but there is more research to be done to know whether this was the building, referred to in 1600, when a John Seabrook was ordered 'to repair and amend his house' (Wheathampstead & Harpenden II, p.44).
The 1861 census lists lists Joseph Matthews as 'carrier and victualler' at Hatching Green - presumably at the White Horse (Wheathampstead & Harpenden V, p209).
But otherwise we have little in our records about when the White Horse acquired its name. The photos below show it as a well-established inn in the nineteenth century. See also Heasman's paintings of it, recently donated to the pub.
Hatching Green with White Horse pub, c.1900. According to Bob Lovegrove, writing in the Harpenden Free Press in 1964, the two children in this photo were George & Billy Sears
LHS archives, cat.no. B 1.78
This looks like George and Billy Sears, taken on the same day as the photo of them with the White Horse
LHS archives - LHS B 1.79
The White Horse, early 20th century?
LHS archives, cat.no. HC160 / B 1.77
The White Horse in the 1930s
LHS archives, cat.no. HC85