Following records of red roses being demanded as rents, it might be worth noting two press reports, in 1996 and 1997, of parsnips, Pastinaca sativa, being paid as rent for a pub in Herefordshire.

According to the Western Daily Press of 21 December 1996, Fran Herdman, landlady of the Rose and Lion in Bromyard,

‘Last night duly gathered a bunch of parsnips. Ceremoniously, she handed them over to the owners of her pub and thus the annual rent for the pub garden was paid.’

The agreement with the pub’s owners, Wye Valley Brewery stipulates that ‘the licensee shall personally deliver to the licensor on the 20th of December of each year a kilo of parsnips which shall be grown by the licensee in the garden’.

A report in The Times of 4 January 1997  states that the owner of the Brewery had originally asked for 1lb of parsnips, but legal advisers told him that under EU rules it must be a kilo.

Image:  Western Daily Press, 21 December 1996.