The Ashley Arms, also known locally as ‘the Little Ashley’, once stood on the far side of the Halfway Green on Station Avenue. It was never more than one of a pair of cottages constructed in the mid-19th century and probably began life as a small beer house in the 1860s. The land had been purchased from a Lower Halliford builder, Henry Sanders, in the 1850s by a Mr Mills, who retained ownership of the property until he sold it, including the adjacent cottages, to the Isleworth Brewery in 1902. In 1887 the Ashley Arms was occupied by an innkeeper J.W.Deadman but in1888 Mills leased it to “Sherrard and another” for 12 years. By 1901 the innkeeper was Alfred Wright and, in 1905, a local photographer C.W Sillence printed a postcard showing a ‘concert room’ which appears to have comprised little more than a piano and some tables in a small decorated bar.
In 1924 the Isleworth Brewery conveyed the inn and cottages to Watney Combe and Reid, latterly Watney Mann Ltd. Samuel Lambeth was the innkeeper in 1934 and J.W Deadman occupied the cottages next door. When the ‘Little Ashley’ closed in August 1991 it was not only one of Walton’s oldest surviving pubs but one of its smallest too, with its tiny ‘snug’ room squeezed between the public and saloon bars on either side.
The building was demolished in 1992 and an office block, now occupied by Kia Motors, was built on the site.
References: Inns and Taverns of Walton and Weybridge; A.G. Martin. Walton and Weybridge Local History Society 1999. A Window on Walton-on-Thames; J.L. & D.M. Barker 1994. Local directories. Photos: The Ashley Arms from Halfway Green 1936, Courtesy of J.L. & D.M. Barker; the site of the Ashley Arms, Halfway Green May 2020 by the author.