White Horse

About

Nestling amongst the lovely half-timbered buildings of Shere, close to the tiny bubbling River Tillingbourne, is a former 15th century farmhouse and Grade

Story

History Of The White Horse

The White Horse was built in 1425 as a farmhouse called Cripps, standing in two acres of ground known as Marysee. Constructed of ships’ timbers, the fine inglenook fireplaces were added in the early 1600’s and it was in the 1700’s when it became an Inn. This coincided with an expansion of Shere into a small township, an increase in prosperity coming from wool and sheep. The buildings in the central part of the village date from this period. The Inn had it’s own brew house and on the land there were the hop gardens, sending the tempting smell into the air

The neighborhood was formerly one of the wildest in Surrey. Sheep stealers, smugglers and poachers all found refuge in the remote hills around Shere. Some of the cottages in the village still have very large cellars (excavated in the sandy soil) which are far too large for honest purposes, and were no doubt made for storing smuggled goods until they could be conveniently taken to London. Local legend had long linked The White Horse with smuggling activity and this was finally confirmed in 1955 when a hidden cellar was discovered containing casks of brandy, some dating back to 1720.

In the late Victorian and early Edwardian period Shere was the meeting place and haunt of writers and artists. Shere had long been called one of the most picturesque villages in England. And it was this that attracted then; J.M Barrie, author of Peter Pan, was one such visitor who no doubt visited The White Horse. Sir Alfred Gilbert, sculptor of Eros, lived here in the 1890’s, Sir Adrian Boult lived in nearby Peaslake and Peter Ustinov acted in The Barn Theatre in the 1930’s.

More recently, The Wedding Date, Bridget Jones The Edge Of Reason was filmed in the Church in 2004, and Renee Zellweger and the whole cast and crew were here for the day. Renee even got changed in one of the rooms upstairs. We have also had Ruby Wax, Lord Sebastian Coe and Frank Lampard all dine here in 2004/5. So far in 2006 we have had the Darkness dine here. We had a movie filmed here in Feb ’06 starring Jude Law, Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. The movie is called The Holiday and was released in December 2006, and more recently we have had the TV series Foyles War shot in the bar area.

Impressum

Book now for Christmas and New Years Eve.