The White Horse Inn stands in the centre of Cilcain, a small village beneath the Clwydian Range in Flintshire, North Wales. It has been part of village life for more than two centuries, although the surviving evidence does not currently allow us to give a precise opening date.
The strongest published historical source I can find states that the inn was established in the early nineteenth century. Flintshire Archives also holds deeds relating to the wider White Horse estate and blacksmith's shop dating from 1812 to 1894, as well as a specific deed for the White Horse Inn dated 1913. These archive records confirm the long history of the property, although the catalogue entries alone do not establish exactly when it first began trading as a pub.
The original White Horse was considerably smaller than the building seen today. What was once the main inn now forms part of the present lounge. Next door stood a cottage which was subsequently incorporated into the pub, while a smithy occupied a neighbouring building.
This relationship between inn, cottage, smithy and surrounding land gives some idea of the White Horse's original rural setting. Cilcain was an agricultural village surrounded by farms, quarries and workings associated with the mineral-rich hills of Flintshire, and an inn here would have served local residents as well as people travelling through the area.
There is, however, not enough evidence in the readily available records to say confidently that the White Horse was a coaching inn, a miners' pub or any other particular type of establishment. Those descriptions would be speculation.
One unusually detailed episode in the pub's history concerns Eleanor Jones, who managed the White Horse from 1899.
Eleanor had inherited £497 in 1897, a substantial sum at the time. She used some of her money to buy furniture and fixtures for the White Horse and also acquired a cottage in Cilcain and livestock. Her husband Alfred, who worked as a bricklayer, farmed land adjoining the inn as a tenant.
The arrangement later led to a complicated legal dispute.
When approximately 15 acres of land associated with the property were offered for sale in 1904, Eleanor was ill and sent Alfred to the auction on her behalf. Alfred apparently failed to make clear that he was acting for his wife. He subsequently became bankrupt in 1905, and his receiver took possession of property which Eleanor maintained had been bought with her own money.
In 1906 Eleanor went to court seeking to recover £200 which she argued formed part of her separate estate. Her claim failed because Alfred had signed for the land himself. According to the surviving account, the judge expressed sympathy for Eleanor and criticised Alfred's conduct.
The 1904 sale advertisement is also revealing because it described the White Horse as an inn popular with tourists and shooting parties, with a yard and pasture behind it. This shows that by the beginning of the twentieth century it was serving visitors as well as the local community.
One of the most distinctive things about the White Horse today is that much of its historic interior survives.
CAMRA, which considers the pub to have a regionally important historic interior, records a major transformation at about 1940. According to its research, the White Horse was purchased and refurbished using Irish Sweepstake winnings. The adjoining cottage was incorporated into the pub and much of the interior fitted out at this time remains in place.
The surviving features include quarry-tiled floors, a curved bar counter, brick and inglenook-style fireplaces and separate small drinking rooms. One tiny room at the rear has traditionally contained a grandfather clock and piano and is served through a hatch behind the bar.
The arrangement is important because many British pubs lost their separate rooms during twentieth-century modernisation. The White Horse largely retained them.
CAMRA consequently gives the pub's interior two-star status, meaning an interior it considers to be of *very special national historic interest*. The building itself is not statutorily listed.
A copper top was apparently added to the bar, probably during the 1960s, but otherwise much of the circa-1940 arrangement remained intact.
Another particularly important chapter began in 1977, when Peter and Christine Jeory took over the White Horse.
They had moved to Cilcain from Wallasey and went on to run the pub for 41 years. During their tenure the White Horse was further extended and became particularly well known for its food.
CAMRA dates a rear extension creating an additional dining area to around 1980 or the early 1980s. Despite this expansion, the older bars and much of the 1940 interior were preserved.
The Jeory family's long association with the White Horse became part of the story of the pub itself. Their children grew up there, and their son Anthony Jeory later became an award-winning investigative journalist, writing under the name Ted Jeory. He subsequently wrote about the characters and customers he remembered from growing up at the White Horse.
Cilcain also became a film location during the making of *Hilary and Jackie*, the 1998 biographical film about cellist Jacqueline du Pré and her sister Hilary.
A plaque on the porch of the White Horse commemorates the fact that scenes for the film were shot in Cilcain. The available source says scenes were filmed in the village; it does not establish that scenes were necessarily filmed inside the pub itself, so it would be misleading to claim that without further evidence.
The White Horse's position immediately below the Clwydian Range has also shaped its more recent character. CAMRA describes it as attracting many walkers, and it has long been associated with people exploring the surrounding hills.
Photographs provide useful independent evidence of its continuity. Images taken in 2008 show the White Horse operating in recognisably the same building and setting, while another personal photographic record compares the pub in 1963 with its appearance more than half a century later and comments on how little the exterior had changed.
The pub also remains associated with local outdoor events. For example, the Clwydian Fell Race organisation uses the White Horse as the venue for its Cilcain race known as “The Horse”.
The White Horse remains an independent pub on Ffordd y Llan, Cilcain. What makes it particularly interesting is not simply its age, but the survival of several different stages in its history within one building.
The earliest part belongs to the nineteenth-century inn. The neighbouring cottage records the pub's later expansion. Much of the interior reflects the major refurbishment of around 1940. The dining area represents the expansion of the Jeory years from the late 1970s onwards.
The result is a pub which has changed considerably while retaining an unusually strong physical connection with its past.
What can presently be said with confidence is that:
* the White Horse was established as an inn in the early nineteenth century; * archival material concerning the White Horse property survives from at least 1812 onwards; * Eleanor Jones was managing it by 1899; * it was advertised in 1904 as being popular with tourists and shooting parties; * it underwent a major expansion and refurbishment at around 1940, reportedly financed from Irish Sweepstake winnings; * much of that historic pub interior survives; * Peter and Christine Jeory took over in 1977 and ran it for 41 years; * a further dining extension was added around 1980; * and the pub continues to occupy a prominent place in Cilcain village life.
There are still gaps. In particular, I have not found reliable evidence identifying the original founder, an exact opening year, or a complete sequence of landlords before 1899. Those may well be recoverable through the surviving deeds, licensing records, census returns, historic newspapers and trade directories held by Flintshire Archives and other collections, but I would not invent names or dates to fill those gaps.
