Coffee House

Robert Drake from Seaton Ross leased the then public house from Lord Herries in 1880. Its address was simply given as Public House, School Field.

In 1898 a letter was addressed to Mr Drake at The Temperance Hotel.

1898. Lord Herries accepts Joseph Drake in place of Robert who has died. “The house is to be kept as a coffee and refreshment house; a horse and trap to be kept for hire and stabling supplied for travellers and others”.

The photo is of a group outside the building now clearly named Everingham Coffee House and 

run by Henry Pears.

The Coffee House retained an important place in village life for many years.

The part on the left (facing the building) became the village post office (photo in the village hall) with its own door and a room to one side of the main front door was used by the Estate for receiving rents on Quarter Days.

Later, the postmaster Herbert Hall and his daughter Nina kept up the building’s hospitable reputation, doing teas for the older people in the village. Here’s the Darby and Joan Club enjoying High Tea around 1952.. 

When Nina moved to York, Herbert (known as Stumpy) retired, and the Post Office moved to what is now called Swallow Cottage under the new postmasters Jack and Polly Sayers. Stumpy can be seen here being presented with a retirement gift by Lady Katherine Phillips (sister of the then Duke of Norfolk) who lived with her husband Colonel Philips at Home Farm. 

Jack Sayer and the Rev. Donald Burnett look on.

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