The Cock Horse
(aka Old Cock Inn, Lower Cock Inn)

The Old Cock Inn on the Tonbridge Road is a former coaching inn built in 1502. It supplied cock horses to assist wagons and carriages to climb the hill heading north from Hildenborough.

Pictured outside the Old Cock Inn, a horse and cart belonging to Walter Palmer and family. The 1911 Census lists three sons of Walter Palmer - Walter Jr, Charles, and James - as horse slaughterers.
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Amazingly, the Cock Horse has a list of all the licensees going back to 1511:

1511 Hardimus Stubbins
1540 Jonas Zuy
1558 Clementine Zuy
1563 William Lambe
1581 Joseph Chiltern
1589 Johnathan Algar
1607 Johnathan S. Searle
1615 Helen Searle
1620 William Searle
1642 Frederick Badley
1659 Lucas Branche
1673 William Dunstar
1682 Richard Barrel
1698 Daniel Willis
1709 Richard Collins
1725 Jeremiah Tate
1738 Joseph Sayer
1743 Frederick Sayle
1769 Thomas Brindley
1774 Francis Hammond
1786 Philip Egerton
1798 Johnathan Sedge
1810 James Carter
1820 Henry Lancer
1829 Frederick Tamkin
1838 Cecilia Tamkin
1845-1862 William Tamkin
1867 Henry Betts
1874 Alfred Packham
1878-1881 David Jenner (or Fenner)
1886-1891 Johnathan Lidster
1895-1922 Walter James Palmer
1930 Miss Ellen Palmer
1938-1948 Henry Alexander Spooner
1948-1962 Joyce Evelyn Spooner
1962 Mr Smart
1969-1982 John William Kenna
1985 William Stuart Williams
1991 S. Abramon
1992 D.T. Banks
1995 Glyn Jones
2005 Glyn Jones & Darren Glyn Jones
2017 Darren Glyn Jones
2017-2019 Gary Marc Barrett
2019 Peter Hayes (temporary holding manager).....
November 2019.....  THE END.

To be converted into two 5-bedroom houses.  RIP ol' Cock Horse.

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