One stretch of Petersfield – from The Causeway and along Dragon Street and College Street – has ‘lost’ at least seven pubs over the years, writes Lyn Heigl, a volunteer researcher for Petersfield Museum.

Before the railways came, some larger pubs in Petersfield, like The Red Lion, began as coaching inns – vital refreshment stops for passengers at the crossroads of the old A3 north-south road, and the A272 east-west route.

Smaller, ‘drinking’ pubs became even more numerous after 1830, when An Act of Parliament enabled almost any householder to sell ale, with many opening their homes as ‘pubs’ to make a little extra money.

Although the Act was amended over the years to tighten licensing laws, large numbers of pubs remained, but by the millennium, many had vanished.

And along this Petersfield thoroughfare seven pubs are either gone, or been converted to other use – their lively past social life leaving just an echo along the road.

At 135 The Causeway, The Jolly Sailor, was a 1930s-style pub that closed in 2004 and after a long battle was finally demolished in 2010 to make way for housing.

Heading from the former Jolly Sailor toward the town, at the junction of Dragon Street with Sussex Road, a petrol station on the corner with Sussex Road sits on the site of the long gone Crown Inn.

One resident remembers being taken there by her grandmother, always exciting for the young girl as the landlady also kept a pet pig in the pub.

In 1961 it was demolished to make way for the petrol station.

Another long-gone pub with a colourful history was The Fighting Cocks at 30 Dragon Street, now the entrance to The Maltings.

It was owned for many years by the Blanchard family, and a descendant remembers stories of smuggling relating to the pub, with barrels arriving from Chichester by pony and trap in the dead of night, to be hidden from the excise officers.

Later, when the pub gained a disreputable reputation as ‘the tramps’ hotel’, the family decided it was time to give up.

Many residents will remember The Green Dragon pub at 20 Dragon Street – now the Kings Arms youth centre, and formerly JSW restaurant.

However, it was built in the 1600s as The Sun Inn, later changed to The Green Dragon, and back to The Sun during the 18th century.

It remained The Sun until 1976, then reverted to The Green Dragon until it closed in 2006.

Records indicate that the pub moved across the street around 1790, perhaps accounting for the name changes, but there is also a connection with number 28, Dragon House, where a blue plaque reads: “c.1625. Formerly the Green Dragon (1697), housing the inn’s maltster and brewer.”

So this part of the street has boasted several hostelries over the years.

North of The Red Lion and The Folly is number 20 College Street, where a White Hart pub had stood since the early 17th century.

It was rebuilt in 1808, and again in 1923 when local brewer George Henty recreated it as his company’s ‘show house’.

The mock Tudor frontage of the pub was retained when the pub closed in 2010 and became White Hart Cottages.

Finally, at the top of College Street beyond The Good Intent pub, numbers 50 and 52 were once The Black Horse, previously The Shoulder of Mutton.

Today the faded pub sign is barely legible on the front wall: ‘The Black Horse, licensed to sell beers and spirits’.

The first record of it is in 1709, and it was a busy alehouse in the 1740s, but by 1841 it had become two dwellings, and no longer an alehouse.