The Chiltern Hills have always been an area of outstanding natural beauty and visitors to this part of the world find themselves entering a labyrinth of high sided lanes and tumbling slopes. It is down one of these slopes and narrow lanes that you will find The Old Plow, hidden away in the peaceful hamlet of Flowers Bottom, below the village of Speen.

The Old Plow was originally built as two cottages and later became ‘Ye Plow Inn’. At that time, most of the owners of the inn were blacksmiths who shod horses in the blacksmith’s shop attached to the inn and talked corn a nd wheat prices round the bar with local farmers and visitors to the Duke of Buckingham’s estate.

Amongst the many famous visitors to Ye Plow Inn, were King Charles II and Samuel Pepys, who it is, said wrote some of his diaries sitting next to the enormous bread oven. During his reign, the King hunted regularly with Villiers Duke of Buckingham. He also kept a hunting lodge locally and stabled his horses at nearby Speen Farm (now the Home of Rest for Retired Horses).

In more recent times, Ye Plow Inn was owned by the son-in-law of Earl Kitchener of Khartoum and some years later by Miss Ishbel McDonald, daughter of the first ever Labour Prime Minister, James Ramsey McDonald. The presence of such a well known landlady and the advent of the railway and tube connections to nearby towns, turned this old world inn into the most famous in the country. Undeterred by the ghosts still inhabiting the Old Plow, Miss McDonald remained as landlady for over thirty years before retiring to her native Scotland.

We look forward to receiving you. After your visit you will then be able to say “I too have eaten at the table of Kings and the famous!”