How Bury St Edmunds workhouse saw the birth of The Dove pub

The Bury St Edmunds workhouse in College Street, which was sold off in 1884, was not fit for purpose it would seem with the inmates moving from there to a new workhouse on the western side of town in 1878.

This came about because in 1834 the Poor Law Amendment Act was passed which allowed victims of poverty to be treated in a more humane way by the terms of the day. Parishes could amalgamate forming a union thus lessening the financial burden on each parish, hence why and how the Thingoe Union Workhouse was born.

A large red brick edifice in the shape of a St Andrews Cross was built around 1836 in Mill Road on land previously owned by the Rev Orbell Ray, by a member of a prominent Bury family, the builder William Steggles.

It cost over £6,000 and had room for 300 paupers.

The number of these unfortunate wretches of society in the ‘spike’ in 1851, was 250!

This sobriquet for a workhouse came about after the tool used to unpick ropes for oakum hence ‘money for old rope’.

Couples were split up but infants were kept with their mothers, the older children put to work as everyone had to work to earn their keep. The diet was very basic, ‘Oliver Twist’ days!

In 1898 part of the building became an infirmary, the shape of things to come, because in 1930 it is given over to become St Mary’s geriatric hospital.

The stigma of living in a workhouse kept with some people all of their lives, the memories of a childhood here sadly staying with the elderly until their death in the very place they might have been also born!

The geriatric unit moved out on 18th April 1977 with St Marys demolished in 1979, and housing is now on the site.

The very closeness of the workhouse probably a reason why a beer-house was built by the Steggles family at the end of Union Terrace, a row of cottages providing rental income, demolished in 1960.

The Dove public house only received its full licence in 1929 transferred from the recently closed Hunted Stag in St John’s Street.

As was common with many properties in the Victorian era, smart Woolpit White bricks were used on the front, cheaper red on the side and a rough mix of brick and flint on the rear, as at the Dove.

Possibly overstretching themselves prior to their building of Eastgate Street bridge in 1840 the Steggles were bankrupted, fortunately their bank the Eastern Counties Bank in Bury’s Buttermarket (now Lloyds) allowed payment in one form or another to their creditors.

So here we have in Hospital Road a drinking establishment sandwiched in between the Suffolk General Hospital (from 1826) and the Thingoe Union workhouse, a sure-fire winner for trading for the Dove (first recorded as such in 1861).

A succession of around eight landlords from its inception led to an Isaac Russell becoming the licensee in 1900.

With his wife Harriet née Hutson they had several children one of whom was called Alfred who was born in 1873.

He would become the landlord in 1916 having married a Rebecca Seeley in 1903.

It was this relationship that would have an horrific impact on their family because Alfred died by suicide on October 30, 1925.

An inquest was held on Saturday evening, October 31, in a small room at the Dove, a summary of which is below.

On the day of this sad occasion, at around 8.15 am, his daughter Rebecca made him a cup of tea, after drinking it he went upstairs saying he didn’t feel like working that day. After finishing some chores she never saw her father around.

Her brother Jack arrived about 11am and he went upstairs to see if his father wanted any dinner and found the door locked.

Rebecca said he probably didn’t want to eat. However after opening up at 5pm and still no sign of Alfred she went up after an hour, still the door was locked.

Worried, she went to her Uncle Thomas’s house and he came immediately, forced the door open and found his brother (dead).

At this subsequent inquest, the coroner asked the family if Alfred had any worries, for instance financial as an unpaid bill for £5 was found on him. It was then disclosed that Alfred was very concerned about his wife’s mental state, being in Ipswich Asylum.

Dr Stork, the medical Officer of Health, said he attended to the deceased around 7pm on the previous evening and death must have occurred more than eight hours earlier.

Rebecca told the coroner, Mr George Carter, that her father was worried about falling trade. Mr Burton for the Dove’s owners Greene King said the Russell family were good tenants over a number of years.

In summing up, the coroner remarked “that this was a very sad case indeed and there is no doubt whatsoever that the deceased man was labouring under great trouble of mind on account of his wife being an inmate of the asylum. There is also some evidence that he was troubled by money matters and the loss of trade. These things combined to unsettle his mind, and I have no doubt preyed on his mind to such an extent, that he determined to commit suicide. I find that the deceased committed suicide by hanging himself whilst in a state of unsound mind, and I offer my condolences to the family”.

Alfred was just 52 and was buried on November 5 in the Borough Cemetery, compartment 8, entry burial number 19327.

There was a good attendance at the graveside including members of the family and local victuallers; the Rev. A Morgan-Williams of St Marys officiated.

Alfred’s wife Rebecca died in Ipswich Asylum on February 23, 1931, aged 57 and brought back to Bury where she was buried with Alfred on February 28th, a sad ending to the whole episode.

Strangely Alfred’s brother Tom was licensee of the Old Angel in College Street for 32 years, he died in January 1946 aged 68 amazingly he had served in the Grenadier Guards in various conflicts.

In December of 1925 George Cole a new licensee took over, one of several until the popular Dove landlord Tommy Reach in 1968 had it until 1986. This was when major structural and bar layout alterations were made.

The adjacent house to the Dove had been absorbed several years earlier.

The Dove is an award-winning real ale pub, no music, no food other than nuts and crisps and no lager, with another popular landlord Roger Waters becoming a tenant in August 2009.

It is no longer a Greene King pub as it became a free-house owned by Roger on March 31, 2017.

A Postscript

In medieval times, suicide was known as Self-Murder and was a criminal offence, the unfortunate perpetrator buried in non-consecrated ground or at a cross-roads as many religions, including Islam and Christianity, considered suicide to be a sinful practice. Surprisingly it wasn’t until The Suicide Act of 1961 that suicide was decriminalised in England and Wales.

Should anyone feel desperate through depression, debt or require emotional support, the Samaritans on 116 123 are just a free call away.