Nelson Cottage, Well End, is a two storey two bay timber framed house dating from c1600. It became a beer house in 1841.
It was bought by Hertford Brewers McMullen’s in 1912 and was known as the Lord Nelson.
It closed in 1932 and the building reverted back to a dwelling house, McMullen’s building the new Lord Nelson on an adjacent plot of land.
For some time the pub had been affectionately known by locals as The Mops and Brooms. The name supposedly derived from a fight between gypsies, farm labourers and poachers who frequented the pub and who used the travellers wares of mops and
brooms in a mighty punch up.
When McMullen’s decided to officially change the name to The Mops & Brooms the original sign, a portrait of Lord Nelson, was replaced by one depicting the fight. The old sign now hangs over a fireplace in the pub.
