Inn fails to make the list
An attempt to get a public house listed for protection has been rejected.
Shelford Parish Council had appealed to English Heritage to help protect the Earl of Chesterfield public house in the village.
It argued that it was a unique building in the village and should be preserved for its historical juxtaposition of chapel and alehouse.
But the request was rejected because it was not of special architectural or historic interest.
The business is believed to date back to the early to mid-1800s. It is made up of two cottages that probably date back to the late 18th Century.
The building was an alehouse by 1870 when it appeared in the first edition of the Ordnance Survey Map. An 1884 map records it as the Earl Of Chesterfield Arms.
Its name derives from the then owner of the Shelford estate, the Earl Of Chesterfield.
To the front of the building was a Primitive Methodist Chapel, built in1840, which operated until 1932 when it became an ordinary Methodist Chapel.
The chapel was eventually bought by the public house during the 1970s to be used as extra accommodation, on the condition that no alcohol would be sold in the former chapel area.
Carrie Cowan, English Heritage’s operations coordinator, said Primitive Methodists were generally at the extreme end of the Temperance Movement, but curiously are found in Shelford co-existing with the pub-goers.
She said there was a good deal of evidence to show that there had been several changes to the original buildings, including numerous extensions that were not complimentary to the historic fabric.
Also, the interior has been much altered and only limited historic features survive.
She said: “While undoubtedly the building has local interest in terms of its fabric and the neighbouring development of the public house and the Primitive Methodists, the building is too altered from its original form and lacks special interest in a national context in terms of either its public house or former chapel architecture to merit inclusion on the statutory list.”
