Wheatsheaf (Garden Street)

Renamed just before the war, presumably by the then licensee Frederick Fice, and closed in the early fifties the Wheatsheaf in Garden Street, Devonport was, for the vast majority of its existence, known as the Garden Gate, an altogether more unusual, although by no means, unique, pub name.

The Wheatsheaf has been a popular inn name since at least the seventeenth century and variants of it – Sheaf of Wheat, Sheaf, Sheaf and Sickle, Barley Sheaf, Barley Mow – hark back to the very earliest of time when not everyone could read and write and a simple sign depicting the main ingredients of beer alerted all but the blind to the fact that this was an ale house.

The pub appears to have opened at some point in the first half on the nineteenth century.

Licensees

1844 - James Prout
1852 - Nicholas Bartlett
1857 - John Colverwell
1873 - John Brown
1875 - Moses Moses
1882 - Mrs Thomas
1885 - Miss B Steel
1890 - Mrs Ellen Mellish
1923 - William Bartlett
1935 - William Santills
1935 - Rose Wilson
1936 - George Briggs
1937 - Frederick Fice
1947 - Frederick Balsom
1950 - Frederick Fice
1951 - Ellen Fice
1952 - Frederick Balsom