The Bridge Hotel was a long-forgotten pub, sited close to the railway on Asylum Arch Road. It was later subsumed within the Royal Earlswood Hospital site and used as a facility for the residents there. Since 1991, it has been a nursery, initially for the hospital and called ‘Jolly Tots’, and subsequently a private nursery school called ‘Bright Horizons.’
The Bridge Hotel was originally a public house with rooms to stay, conveniently sited on Asylum Arch Road for the workmen constructing Earlswood Railway Station. Historical archives from the Royal Earlswood Hospital show that it was built in 1854 by a victualler named Thomas Barefoot.
Some time prior to June 1868, it was acquired by Nalder & Collyer, a highly prominent brewery company based in Croydon. They had a huge portfolio of over 160 tied houses in London and the South East, (a full list of those held in 1936 is available on Wikipedia). Because it was owned by a commercial brewery right up until June 1868, it was almost certainly operated as a tied house within their portfolio.
The building is shown as a hotel in the 1861 census. The hotel keeper was a Richard Eldridge, aged 37, born in Folkestone, Kent and his wife, Ann, also aged 37, was born locally in Bletchingley. They had ten boarders lodging at the hotel who included four well sinkers, (three from London and one from Reigate); a carpenter from Sussex and two agricultural labourers from Reigate.
Three years later the new landlord was a Mr Hayter. The Surrey Advertiser reported on 2 July that his servant Mary Anne Martin was indicted for stealing a four-penny piece from him but Mary was acquitted.
The minutes book for the Royal Earlswood Asylum show that the Charity Board frequently considered the Bridge Hotel in its meetings. In March 1867, the Medical Superintendent Dr Downs heard that the land adjacent to the Asylum at Asylum Arch Road was up for sale. He acted fast, meeting local Alderman Abbiss and Messrs Kelsey and Gibbons to discuss the need to purchase the land to ‘secure the boundary and preserve the property belonging to the Asylum from annoyance as well as securing a road to the new Earlswood station.’ It would be interesting to know whether the pub or its customers were any part of this annoyance.
Mr Kelsey put up the money and only five days later he bought the land for £1430 at the Guildford Coffee House. The Board later repaid him, noting that this deal was ‘securing a most favourable investment for the benefit of the Asylum.’
Nalder and Collyer continued to own the Bridge Hotel and in June the following year the Board offered to buy it for £1000. They agreed a purchase price of £1200 with David Watney of 62 Broad Street, a surveyor and auctioneer acting on the brewery chain’s behalf. The Bridge Hotel was renamed the Bridge Inn in October 1868.
Some time later the property ceased to operate as a pub and was used for various purposes by the hospital. In 1890, it accommodated one private patient and an attendant, and in 1899 it was the isolation hospital for a short time. It was no longer considered suitable for managing infectious disease by the following year. At one time it housed sixteen male patients before being let in 1910 to a private individual. In 1921 a south London jam manufacturer lived there but by 1924 it was being used as a girls’ continuation school. In 1969 it was transformed into an occupational therapy and social centre for mixed adult patients of Royal Earlswood.
The Bridge Hotel had operated as a pub for only fourteen years when it was bought by the hospital and it had ceased to operate as a pub by the late nineteenth century. Its life since has been very varied.
The Doctor's Tale, 1662-1975, Reigate and Redhill, (1976), Lawrence Dulake
Surrey Advertiser, 2 July 1864
The minutes book for the Royal Earlswood Asylum covering 1867-1870, (Surrey Archives 392/2/1/6)