Plough

by Jon Malings

The Plough Inn was at the southern end of New Street, on the east side, a few houses up from the junction with St. Thomas'. It is on the Deddington village map drawn up for the 1808 enclosure award at north end of number 30.

The Deddington News of April 1977 has a picture of the Plough on it’s cover and inside a short article with brief mentions of other Deddington pubs. There is no attribution so it was probably written by Mary Robinson, the editor:

"The Plough Inn still served ale by the jug in the lifetime of many of our older residents.  It closed it’s doors in 1927 and was re-opened as a butchers and poulterers in 1931 by Eli Walker, father of Percy Walker of Hudson Street.

At one time beer barrels would have been rolled from New Street down into the stone-vaulted cellar beneath the house. The fine groined arches on light columns date the cellar at least from the fifteenth century, but the crypt may have originated two centuries earlier in the chapel of the Black Friars Dominican order.  Rumour has it that a walled up passage led from the cellar top the Church on the Castle but the lie of the land makes this virtually impossible.  Eli Walker had a go at uncovering the passage and it was left to Percy to brick it up again.

The cover picture, kindly lent by Mr. Fred Deely, was taken around 1900-1910 and the figure on the doorstep of the Plough was quite possibly Eliza Matthews, the landlady. “