Records can be uncertain for many old Devon inns. However, the history of The Old Inn is well recorded. We know, from the 1543 or 1547 reset stone, when it was first built. We also know that it was deliberately burned down, along with the parish poorhouse and three or four adjoining cottages, in the spring of 1806 and was rebuilt and has continued to be an Inn ever since.

It was originally built as the Church House. Nearly every parish possessed one. It provided for festivities, the brewing and dispensing of ale and accommodation for the rector's manor tenants.

Belief in Hawkchurch has it that it was primarily built to accommodate masons when the church was having work done on it back in the 1540s. This is feasible since many of the old Church Houses were built at a time when the old Norman Churches were being restored after a few centuries of wear and tear.

So, the Church House probably brewed and dispensed ale from its beginnings. It was a very useful expedient in raising church funds. However, a dispute arose in the period 1634 1639. A petition was presented by John Crandon, the puritan curate in Hawkchurch, and some parishioners. The petition requested that our Church House or Old Inn should not be granted an Alehouse license. The petition is a little difficult to follow but it seems that it had been recently licensed but the justices took it away on the grounds that it was engendering poverty and vice. However, it was so popular with the patrons that they were defiantly set on turning it into a 'common inn'. Crandon and his followers requested that this fresh license should not be granted, especially as

The house which it is sought under the name of an Inn, to make a house of disorder (as it hath been, being of late an unlicensed Ale house) is or Church house...

The petition also complained that "the Inn Keep, one for his ill demeanor very lately mittmuss' by the Justice to the Bridewell. From this garbled English we presume that it was the innkeeper who had the "ill demeanor"

The petition stated that the parish "for many years hath no ale house within it". Either this means no licensed ale house or no ale house at all. It probably means no ale house at all which, of course, would fire the determination of customers to keep it running. Many Church House activities were suppressed by the puritans, including festivities and brewing and dispensing of ale.

We do not know the short term outcome of Crandon's petition. In the longer term it did not stop the license since we know that John Davey was running it as an inn in the 1680s.

There is some mystery about The Old Inn in the records. Hutchins' Dorset describes it as "A large ancient house" before it was burned down. However, The Court Book for Hawkchurch referred to "two cottages". Another mystery is Hutchins' Dorset dating the inscription as "1543,'. In its Listed Building description "1547" is given. Hutchins, of course, could well be wrong. The listing also dates the building as "early 19th century". This fits there being a fire in 1806. However, it is curious that we found no reference to that fire in the records. There is no break in the Land Taxes and Poor Rates. Before and after 1806, the Court Book describes it exactly the same way as "two cottages". The rebuilding of the property must have been carried out very rapidly.

As was the case in many old Devon and Dorset inns, the innkeepers doubled up with other trades. The Old Inn had a tradition for shoemakers. Henry Masters in the early 1700s was a cordwainer and two of the nineteenth century innkeepers were shoemakers. Perhaps the premises had some special facility for the trade. Other occupations were butcher Nathaniel Woodman  and blacksmith  James Maish or Marsh. One innkeeper had a unique distinction. James Moley died at 103 a very good age!.