Geograph - photograph every grid square

21 months on from OLU's TL1829 : The Orchard & Anvil and the building still survives.

This 1840s building was formerly The Woolpack and the yard behind was the location of a small forge, hence the modern re-branding. The 1884 Ordnance Survey map shows a substantial area of orchards on the opposite side of Nightingale Road facing the pub, between the present-day Grove Road and Florence Street, and this probably accounts for the other half of the name.

A planning application has been made to demolish the pub and replace it with a block of flats. However the Hitchin Historical Society have made an eloquent and well-thought out plea Link to keep the building because of its historic value and prominent location.

The information that the pub was formerly called the Woolpack warranted a search into old Census records yet curiously a brief search showed no mention of a pub with either name. Perhaps it was called something else before the Woolpack.