What happened
The Seven Stars is the big corner building in the middle of Robertsbridge, and the date usually attached to it is 1177, the year the Cistercians founded the abbey up the road. Historic England is more careful: it lists the house Grade II*, designated in 1961, and dates it to about 1400 — a Wealden hall house with the recessed centre and curved brackets under the eaves that the type is known by, with a crown-post roof inside and alterations in the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Two centuries later than the claim, in other words, and still one of the oldest buildings in the village. Its other reputation is eighteenth-century. Robertsbridge lay in Hawkhurst Gang country, and Horace Walpole, stopping here in 1752, found one bed free because smugglers had the rest; the pub is a stop on the Hawkhurst Gang trail today. It has also been named among the ten most haunted pubs in the country, on the strength of a Red Monk and a poltergeist investigated in 2013. It stopped trading on 30 June 2015.
What is there now
Shut and waiting. CAMRA has carried it as closed long term since 30 June 2015 with its future uncertain, and names Harveys of Lewes as the freeholder; no leaseholder is recorded and no reopening has been announced. The Grade II* listing protects the hall house and its crown-post roof whatever happens to the licence.
Sources
- CAMRAcamra.org.uk
- Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Historic Englandhistoricengland.org.uk
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