The five lost pubs of Barton as Half Moon faces closure

About 70 people attended a public meeting to discuss a planning application to reconfigure the building, which more than 60 people have objected to. They fear the Half Moon will become a restaurant reliant on outside visitors rather than remain a community hub pub.

Once Barton had five pubs lubricating travellers on the Great North Road passing from Scotch Corner into Darlington.

The Half Moon in the 1930s. Is that landlord Hilton G Curtis posing for the cameraman? (Image: Chris Lloyd)

The Shoulder of Mutton

Behind the Moon, on the terrace which now houses the village shop, were the Voltigeur – named after the racehorse belonging to Lord Zetland of Aske Hall, which won the Derby and the St Leger in 1850 – and the Shoulder of Mutton.

The Shoulder of Mutton pub on the Great North Road in Barton. It lost its licence around 1904 (Image: Chris Lloyd)

The King William IV Inn

Then, a traveller heading north could turn right into a street with the fabulous name of Ugly Porch and find the Wheatsheaf, a coaching inn with stables which shut in the mid 19th Century, or they could go on to the last property in the village which was the King William IV Inn.

The King William IV pub in Barton in 2007 (Image: Sarah Caldecott)

This was built in 1760 as a farmhouse but its name suggests it was one of thousands of pubs which opened after the passing of the 1830 Beerhouse Act, an unpopular government’s attempt to curry favour by liberalising the licensing laws. The Act said that anyone who bought a licence for two guineas – £2.10 – could open a pub as long as they displayed the name of the licence-holder on a board outside. Consequently, many of the new pubs were called the Board Inn although many more were named the King William IV because the Act came into effect just as he ascended to the throne on June 26, 1830.

A decade later, an estimated 45,000 new brewers had been granted licences amid an explosion of drunkenness.

An Edwardian postcard of the Great North Road looking south in Barton towards the school with shops, a post office and a petrol station on the left hand side which are all now private houses (Image: Chris Lloyd)

The liberalising of the laws coincided with a new road, which opened in 1832, running from Scotch Corner through Stapleton and over the Tees at Blackwell into Darlington. This put Barton on the main road from London and Edinburgh and encouraged a surprising number of pubs, and shops, cafes and garages, to open up.

A snowy 1970s scene in Barton with the Half Moon in the centre (Image: Chris Lloyd)

It is said that during the Second World War, the village’s position beside the A1, encouraged a German spy to take up lodgings in the Half Moon so he could monitor troop movements along the main road and keep an eye on the airfields of Croft, Scorton and Middleton St George.

After a year of handling post from Switzerland for him, the Barton postmaster became suspicious and called the police. The lodger was carted off and never seen again, and the word was that he had been passing his sensitive gleanings to a safe house in Zurich. His disappearance came at the same time as a group of alleged spies posing as Irish clergymen were rounded up in south Durham.