As I review the transcript of the medical records of Doctor Thomas Ilott my attention was drawn to the people contained in the prescription ledger resident at the Red Cow 1809-1812.
Most local public houses are well known but the Red Cow of 1809 has long disappeared and I was intrigued to look at both the name and location.
In 1751 when the noted Mrs Elizabeth Montague took the lease of a house at Hayes;Rachel Knowles blog about her may be read here. Visits to her home at Hayes enabled her friends to enjoy "wholesome fare of brown bread, sincerity, red cow's milk,which afford good nourishment to mind and body".
I find the reference to local red cows interesting and the lease of the house in Hayes is also of interest because when Mrs Montague ended William Pitt took over the lease and eventually had a house built in Hayes where his son William (the Younger) was born.
I find the hints that local cows were red in the eighteenth century significant in the choice of name for a local hostelry.
The references to the Red Cow and residents there contained in the Ilott prescription ledger are therefore valuable in our knowledge of a local hostelry in Hayes Lane now long forgotten.
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