Old documents from the 1860s found in the loft of The Allied pub in Honley suggested it was once a grocer’s as well a licensed house run by a chap called George Dodson.
Landlady Carron Blagbrough said : “It would be nice to find out if that was the case.”
Pub historian Dave Green confirms that George was both a grocer and a licensee. He also offers an explanation of how the pub became the only one in Britain called The Allied. The documents showed George traded with many people in the area and with merchants as far away as Liverpool. He advertised himself as: “George Dodson: Family grocer, tea and coffee dealer and general provision merchant. Church Street, Honley. Fine bottled and draught ales and porter. Superior foreign wines etc. Families supplied on the best terms.”
Dave says: “George traded as a licensed grocer before 1853. He applied in the same period to be a beer house keeper. He passed on this license to John Moss about 1866.
”The pub name came about because of both the Crimean War and the allied trading between corn and grain merchants,” Dave says.
“The troops fighting in the war were called the Allies and the corn merchants who backed each other were also called the Allies. Calling at the house for a drink, it became known as the Allied.
”This explains how a previous pub sign showed a grocer in an apron while the present one shows four soldiers of the allied force in the Crimea. “
The pub has been licensed since 1854 but only as a beer house. Dave says it didn’t get a full license until 1942, when magistrates agreed to the transfer of the license from the Wheatsheaf Inn in Southgate when that hostelry closed.
