Streeter Sign
The Railway Inn – Henry Streeter and beyond
The Railway Inn was being built as Petworth Station opened in August 1859. Henry Streeter became the landlord sometime later. In 1908 he married his housekeeper, Lily Garland, who was the mother of George Garland, the renowned photographer who grew up at the Inn.
In 1952 the name of the Inn was changed to The Racehorse by the landlords, John and Peggy Hughes. The name was chosen as the inn was popular with those travelling to Goodwood racecourse. In the 1980s it was changed again to the Badger and Honey Jar – now changed to The Badgers.
The station bus and the flys, carriages and dog carts
Petworth Station is a mile and a half from the town and Henry Streeter enterprisingly ran a horse drawn bus from the Market Square to the inn and the station.
However, Henry did much more than run the station service and the sign lists a range of horse drawn carriages etc.
H. STREETER
FLY PROPRIETOR, LIVERY & BAIT STABLES
OPEN & CLOSE CARRIAGES, FLY & DOG CARTS
BRAKES & PONY CARRIAGES ON THE SHORTEST NOTICE
[bottom line is not readable]
Streeter’s yard and stables were in Normans Mews in East Street, Petworth. The sign reads very much the same as the one from the Railway Inn.
Saving the sign
In 1927 Messers Streeter and Co, as they were now called, announced that they were “replacing Horses with Motors” and an extensive auction was held that included two horse drawn hearses.
It is assumed that the Railway Inn sign was taken down soon after the auction. But how did it end up in the wall of a garage?
Re-discovering the Streeter sign
The house where the sign was found was inherited by the current owners, Andrew & Judy, from Judy’s great grandfather Henry Cooper. He was a builder with a yard in Angel Street, Petworth, renowned for using leftover materials from other projects. So it would appear that the Streeter sign was taken down by him and was to hand when he came to build a garage.
One Sunday morning in the mid 1990’s some builders were knocking down a ramshackle old garage at Northmead behind the Stonemasons Inn to the north of Petworth. The homeowners came back home from church to find that the men had found this old sign and were about to put it on the fire. It was rescued and taken into the dining room where every bug, beetle and other creepy-crawly emerged thinking spring had arrived. If the homeowners had arrived home only a few minutes later it may have been lost.
The sign was stored for many years by The Leconfield Estate, and more recently in the Coultershaw Granary. It was eventually put on display at Coultershaw in May 2024.