Are you looking for a local country pub in Aldbourne near Marlborough, Lambourn and Swindon where you can really enjoy yourself with a decent pint and something to eat or maybe stay for the night? At The Crown, Aldbourne, you will find the very best of a traditional village pub with a restaurant and rooms.
The Crown is a real pub in the heart of the village of Aldbourne near Marlborough set to the border of Wiltshire and Berkshire countryside on the edge of the Marlborough Downs. The Crown, Aldbourne is a free house that serves a selection of real ales backed up with the Cask Marque accreditation and freshly prepared, locally sourced, home-cooked food. We have five bedrooms, a mixture of double and twin rooms. We have plenty of outside space; the courtyard at the rear of the pub and tables out front. The Crown is at the heart of the community, hosting quiz nights, parties, live music most weekends and special events.
At the heart of the community in Aldbourne, we have live music nights, quiz nights, and special events.
The Crown serves locally sourced home-cooked using fresh, seasonal ingredients. Lunch and dinner are available seven days a week.
We have five rooms to rent. All rooms are en-suite and equipped with fresh towels, TVs, and tea and coffee making facilities with ample free parking.
The Crown is a great place for a party – if it’s a significant birthday, a family gathering, just a few friends, or a celebration for your sports club or team.
Overlooking the village pond, in the heart of historic Aldbourne, the Crown is a gracious old English country inn, nestled in the Marlborough Downs. The Crown is a popular local pub that has a fabulous selection of draught ciders and ales, home-cooked food using locally sourced ingredients as well as letting rooms.
The pub is at the heart of the local community with a thriving regular quiz night and live music nights as well as a crib team – everything you would expect from a local.
Within easy reach of the historic Wiltshire including Avebury, Silbury Hill and Stonehenge yet just an hour from London by train, the Crown is an ideal base for a visit or a stop along the way.
Land in Aldbourne has been occupied, if not permanently settled, for around 8,000 years. Earliest occupation and usage was in the upland areas and it was not until Saxon times that the site of the present village was substantially settled. There are good assemblages of Mesolithic flints dating from around 6,000 B.C., which would seem to indicate temporary settlements over a period of time. Many Neolithic artefacts have been found to the north of the village and it is believed that there was a reasonable population for the time in this part of eastern Wiltshire. This continued into the Bronze Age and 20 round barrows top the downs in this area; they include the well-known Four Barrows. At this time there were settlements at both Upham and Woodsend. Occupation at Upper Upham continued through the Iron Age and into the Romano-British period.
The Domesday Book (1086) gives us the best picture of the community at the end of the Saxon period. Aldbourne was held by the king and had enough land for 45 plough teams, although this was not fully exploited as only 36 were being used. Of these, the tenants had 26. There were four mills in the parish and a certain amount of meadow (probably outside the parish), pasture and woodland. Over the whole estate, roughly the modern parish, the population is likely to have been between 670 and 740 people. This included the present village site, then settled to the south and southeast of the church, and what were still probably substantial settlements at Upham and Woodsend.
During the Second World War the village was home before and after D-Day to men of America’s 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. One company, in particular, became famous when the story of Easy Company was published in 1992 by author Stephen Ambrose, under the title “Band of Brothers”. The Crown Aldbourne became, effectively, the paratrooper’s home from home.
Many American veterans have maintained links with the village and in 1999 the US flag was presented to the village in recognition of the kindness shown to US soldiers. Many veterans and their families visit the village and in particular, The Crown Aldbourne. Inside the pub in the 101 Bar, there are memorabilia of those that served their country so bravely and evidence of how they made themselves at home, thousands of miles from their families.
Aldbourne is regularly visited by the Screaming Eagles World War II American soldier living history group. They recreate the look and feel of American soldiers between 1941 and 1945, portraying themselves on the 101st Airborne Division of the period, known as the “Screaming Eagles”. The group is a large team of friends with many vehicles, weapons, uniforms and equipment. As a group they focus on 506th PIR Easy Company from the 101st Airborne Division. They provide an authentic reproduction of how a unit of the 101st Airborne would have looked from 1943 to 1945.
