The Four Horse Shoes (Harveys)

The Four Horse Shoes: 80 Park Street, Luton [Horse Shoes until 1885] The countywide licensing register for 1876 states that the Horse Shoes, as the public house| was then known, was first licensed in 1858. In 1876 it was owned by William Newman. By 1885 directories were listing the business as the Four Horse Shoes, which it remains to the time of writing [September 2009]. In 1908 the Four Horse Shoes was gutted by fire|. The landlord, William Littlweood Clifford|, died whilst trying to secure his takings and the pub was evidently empty for some time because a 1910 directory (presumably compiled early in the year or late in 1909) has no listing for the Four Horse Shoes. Predictably there are reports of sounds like money being counted and a cold presence felt in the cellar of the pub, leading to speculation that William Clifford returns to guard his money! In 1915 the Four Horse Shoes was conveyed by Mary Delafield Williams and Hatfield [Hertfordshire] brewers Pryor Reid & Company Limited to the Brewery and Commercial Investment Trust Limited [WB Green4 2 19] and four years later Pryor and Reid and the Trust conveyed the public house to Luton brewers J. W. Green Limited [WB Green4 1 VP5], along with the Railway Inn and the Vine, both also in Luton, for £3,700. In 1939 Greens allowed a bracket and wires of the Luton Broadcast Relay Service Limited to be attached to the property [WB Green4 1 VP14]. J. W. Green Limited merged with Flowers Breweries in 1954 and the new firm took the Flowers name. Flowers was taken over by Whitbread in 1962 and in 2001 Whitbread divested itself of all its brewing and public house interests. At the time of writing the Four Horse Shoes is a free house owned by Sussex brewery Harveys.