The White Horse

The White Horse is reputedly the oldest public house in Chorleywood.

The earliest known reference is from 1778, when George Wilson paid tithe on land 'opposite the White Horse in Chorleywood hamlet. The original building is dated from at least two hundred years earlier and was extensively rebuilt in the seventeenth century.

In 1782 the White Horse was owned by John Johnson, who also owned Dell Farm. A strict non conformist, he refused to pay the tithe on the farm and conducted a notorious feud with the vicar of Rickmansworth, who ordered that payment be made in kind. This amounted to fifteen lambs, two pigs, three hundred eggs, two hundred gallons of milk. and thirty five, shillings worth of fruit from Mr Johnson's orchards. The vicar made a considerable profit from this arrangement, realising in total the sum of seven pounds nine shillings and four pence.

The name Johnson appears on a number of occasions in the history of The White Horse. Job Johnson kept the public house from 1838 until the mid eighteen fifties and in 1871, when William Tuffnel was landlord, Job's son, Joseph, was recorded by the Census as being a visitor here. It is likely that William Tuffnel's daughter, Fanny, became the wife of Sidney Sale, keeper of the White Horse from 1908 until sometime after the start of the Great War. Fanny took over as landlady from about 1917 until the late nineteen twenties.

The White Horse has a ghost. Those who have seen it decide a man dressed in black, possibly clerical robes. Although generally considered to be, a friendly ghost, he obviously took some exception to one manager when everything that could go wrong did. For no apparent reason the lights fused, freezers and other kitchen equipment broke down and the telephone stopped working.

The Rickmansworth Road, previously The Turnpike, was once nicknamed "The Gout Track”. Legend has is that the road was used by the Marquess of Salisbury to travel from Hatfield, so that he could gain relief in the waters of Bath or Cheltenham from the consequences of this over indulgence.