Previously known as the Rising Sun and the Brewers' Arms, the pub claims to be over 400 years old. It first occurs in the records as an ale house in 1789 when it had a malting house behind it and a small brewery so presumably it produced its own ale and beer. The house is made up from two small cottages with the left side being the bar area and the other side being accommodation. At the rear of the property there is a range of outbuildings which were part of the original brewery and malthouse. The house also had its own skittle alley, but it was later used as the bar area. In the font of the house this is a bar which certainly dates for the early 1800s but may well be much earlier.
By 1800 it was listed as a tied house of the Dolphin Brewery, passing to Martson’s, Strong’s and Whitbread’s over the years. Local people used to call it ‘the Shovel’ rather than the Brewers’ Arms as its inn sign showed a brewer turning the malt with a wooden shovel. On the other hand, its nickname could have come from the habit of the grave daggered from across the road at Hunger Hill Cemetery leaving their shovels standing against the public house’s wall!
In the 1960’s the ceiling in the bar was covered with coins from all over the world. They were stuck to the ceiling with beer by seamen and Royal Marines who made this house their regular calling place.
There is a belief that when it was the Brewers Arms it was haunted by the ghost of a young woman called Mary who was burned to death in a house nearby. Since the change of landlord and its re-naming as the Rising Sun, the ghost has not been seen although she has been accused of turning off appliances in the bar! In the year 2000 the house became the Rising Sun.
Extract from ‘A Pint of Good Pale Ale, Poole's Inns, Taverns & Breweries’, by Andrew Hawkes