Local History
The White Lion by Trevor Bevis
T
he White Lion public house stood at the junction of High Street and St Peter’s Road.
It was demolished several years ago. Built between 1770 and 1800, the pub had an interesting roof, originally of thatch, the timbers beneath fixed in place to bear the weight of overlaying straw. A large number of cottages were built at March in the Fenland tradition. Their walls had the slightest of cavities compared with modern dwelling house walls. The wall cavities usually contained reeds for insulation purposes. The writer has seen the early principle of insulating dwelling places at Wicken Fen. Several ancient March cottages had clay floors which were very cold to one’s feet. This inspired
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D I S C O V E R I N G
March
the manufacture of peg rugs. Some cottage floors consisted of bricks and later concrete floors became the accepted way of flooring the buildings, overlaid by wood surfaces, the usual manner nowadays. Tiles also form a covering. The old cottages of March and Fenland in general have virtually disappeared and it is a shame hardly any survived. They were well built and had open fireplaces fuelled by coal and logs. The Carpenters Arms public house provided the comfort of open fires in winter. I delivered newspapers there and Mr Carter, the landlord, gave me mulled wine. It was something I looked forward to. The Carpenters Arms was the last place in March to take in ‘men of the road.’ It stood on the site of the existing car park near the Iceland store. A P R IL 2 0 2 0
