Bee Hive, 51 Back Derby Street

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The term ‘back street pub’ is normally used for pubs off the main road, but the Bee Hive really was in a back street. Its address was 51 Back Derby Street but it was actually an end terrace on Milk Street. Part of the property had been converted into a pub and was given its own entrance in Back Derby Street. The licensees and their families actually lived in another part of the same property, 2 Milk Street.

The pub dated back to the 1840s when a labourer named Henry Ashton opened up part of his home in Milk Street as a beerhouse. He was succeeded as landlord on his death in 1864 by his second wife Ann Ashton, with his son James Ashton working in the pub’s brewery.

The Ashtons were succeeded in the 1870s by the Reddy family: Martin Reddy and wife Mary. Martin Reddy died in 1888 and he was succeeded by his wife, Mary and when she died in 1899 by their daughter, also named Mary.

The Bee Hive became a Magees house. It closed in 1936 and the property was converted back into a private residence where the younger Mary Reddy lived until her death in 1957. It was demolished in the early-1960s, along with part of Milk Street. The rest of the area was pulled down in the early-seventies.

Faringdon Walk was built on the site of Milk Street. Back Derby Street still exists in part, but the stretch close to what was Milk Street is now Ashbury Close. The shot below from 2012 (copyright Google Street View) is of the Ashbury Close  - Faringdon Walk junction. The Bee Hive stood on the site of the bungalow on the corner.