Ye Old Malt Tea House – a Tudor building in Old Amersham
by Alison Bailey
Mike Dewey’s recent research into Amersham Jazz Club and its origins in an Old Amersham tearoom inspired me to look in more depth at this early building next to the Memorial Gardens.
Malt House
The wooden frame building dates from the 15th century and was re-fronted in red brick in the 18th century. Brewer William Weller purchased the premises, then known as the Griffin Malthouse, in 1783, from the executors of Nathaniel Wingfield who had owned it since 1720. Wingfield’s tenant, John Collingwood, also kept the Griffin Inn opposite, and this served as the malthouse for the inn. Most of the larger coaching inns brewed their own beer and had their own maltings. The Wellers continued to use it as a subsidiary maltings after completing the new buildings on Barn Meadow in 1829. The building was damaged in a fire in 1890 but continued in use until 1907 when it fell into disrepair.
Clement “Mac” Cheese
Clement McMichael “Mac” Cheese (1872-1945), of Elmodesham House (then known as Woodville House) a solicitor and entrepreneur, bought the building from the Wellers in the 20s. He invested heavily in Amersham properties from the Tyrwhitt-Drake and Weller families when they were beginning to relinquish their hold on the town and was responsible for rebuilding the King’s Arms in its present form when it had become very dilapidated.
Mac converted the building into a “high class tea house”, Ye Olde Malt Tea House, managed by Mrs Roylance. Evening entertainment was offered with “well-known London Stars” such as solo violinist Miss Doris Cloud and magician and comedian, Mr Stanley Collins.
Ye Olde Malt Tea House
In the 40s the building was owned by Miss Isaacs, who ran The Malt House Restaurant, which was well known for its home-made bread and cakes. She had a yellow Austin Seven van which provided a delivery service to the villages. In 1948 Hilda and Reginald Padget bought the business. Before her marriage Hilda Pither, originally from Croydon moved to Braeside, London Road with her parents and opened Imp Café at 11 Market Square. This was later known as Brief Encounter and then Paupers! She married Reginald, originally from Yorkshire, in the 1930s and they had four daughters, although their eldest Ann died of tuberculosis when she was five.
The second daughter, Jane was seven when they moved into their new home and remembered it as “a huge place to be in. Lots of nooks and crannies to hide in and large gardens with the Misbourne running over the back wall”. She described how the building included a lunchroom, a tearoom, a gift shop, a bakery, and endless passageways, with the family living accommodation above. “A steep rickety staircase, led to ‘Top Room’ where afternoon teas were served, and wedding receptions held”.
Renamed Ye Olde Malt Tea House they catered for corporate functions, family parties, charity events and weddings. “Weddings were a learning curve; I got an extremely jaundiced view of them. I soon dreaded the arguments and family rows which seemed to me to erupt at these “celebrations of love”! The girls all had their allotted chores. “We learned how to answer the telephone, present bills, work out change, clean, wait at table, make doughnuts, bread and serve customers all round. I remember one Easter Monday we served 600, yes! 600 teas! Hard work”. Jane liked bookkeeping and from about the age of 14 until she left home, this became her sole responsibility.
Skiffle and Jazz Club
Jane first introduced a skiffle night around 1956: “It was the noisiest place in town. How the old beams stood the weight of 100+ teenagers dancing about is credit to those medieval builders! The club came about because at 15 I wasn’t allowed out at night. I knew, though my father didn’t like the music, he did like the tills ringing! So somehow it was arranged and took off, we even got Lonnie Donegan and The Temperance Seven”. In 1958, local jazz band, Les Garcons played for the first time to a crowd of more than 80 so it then became known as a mixed skiffle and jazz club.
Jane said that trouble with rowdy teddy boys caused the club to close, however, her parents also had other problems. The Padgets wanted to demolish the building and replace it with a modern restaurant in 1959 but this was stopped when a preservation order was placed on it by Bucks Council after a campaign by the Amersham Society. An attempt the following year to demolish the gable end of the restaurant to allow access to a carpark and a new dance hall was also blocked. Planning permission was then granted for the addition of hotel rooms, but the Padgets had insufficient funds to finance this. The final straw came when they were twice fined for not meeting hygiene standards because of “crumbling plaster, dust collecting wooden beams, low ceilings and uneven floors” and had to shut the restaurant and sell up.
Shops
In 1963 the Malt House was sold to confectioner Auguste Alfred Girard who moved to Amersham from Norfolk. He planned to re-open the tearoom but the difficulties with the building proved insurmountable and instead the whole site was redeveloped. Flats were built at the back of the garden and the building was divided into three separate business premises with accommodation above. The rear became offices and the front, two shops. Bay windows were added to the shop fronts. Mrs. Marsden opened The Bunny Shop selling babies and children’s clothes and Nancy Kell opened a “high class ladies’ fashion store”. Today Grade II listed, the Malt House currently has one empty shop (previously Joules), and Crew Clothing to the front, and an aesthetic clinic, Skin Techniques at the rear.