The Parrot Inn

Gary Brooker's Pub

In the 1970s Gary Brooker bought a pub, The Parrot Inn. BtP brings you the text of their brochure – thanks to Beverly Peyton, and there's more at the foot of the page, thanks to EJ Haas.

EJ Haas writes to BtP

The Parrot Inn has a home-page, and there is Parrot Inn history at The Forest Green Home Page:

All villages have an Inn, and the Parrot, on the East Side of the Green, has stood there for at least 400 years. In the Records Office at Guildford is an entry "Parrot Inn" stating that, " in 1712, on the 8th day of February, in the tenth year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lady Anne, an agreement was signed between John Evelyn, Esq., of Wotton, and Walter Miall of Abinger, for a cottage and one rood on Farlyes Green, this being renewed in 1812." This may have been transference of business, or possibly for an additional cottage. A map of 1840 shows the Parrot with Tea Garden on the opposite side of the road, on the Green. Those were the days of quiet slow-moving traffic. For many years the Surrey Trust Houses were responsible, leasing it privately as a Free House designated as a Cottage Inn, with two tiny bedrooms available for visitors, bed and breakfast being three shillings and sixpence per night in the 1930s.

The Mail Coach between Dorking and Horsham was for generations the only public transport. The route was via Coldharbour and Leith Hill. A quarter of a mile or so after passing the Parrot, travelling south, the road turned right, passing Bridgham Farm. The track continued via Pondhead to Mayes Green, and it is along this low little-used area that a rider wearing 17th or 18th century clothes, riding a horse with docked tail, has been witnessed recently. Smugglers certainly there were, travelling from the coast, speeding up Leith Hill and environs for their next relay. The steep, narrow winding track, still known as Smugglers Lane, must have witnessed many illegal transactions, so much more romantic than modern drug trafficking at airports.