The building that was the Pot Of Flowers public house is now 90 & 92 Bury Street, private houses, still with the name above one of the front doors. The building is listed and is described as early 18th century.
The Wordsworth "Dictionary of Pub Names" mentions the pub named The Pot of Flowers in Stowmarket and also a Flower Pot in Hounslow and Cheriton. It suggests that the Flower in the original sign of such pubs was the Lily associated with The Virgin Mary and that puritan influence may have induced a change of name to put the emphasise on the pot rather than the flowers, and indeed Stowmarket Pot Of Flowers is often referred to as The Flower Pot in 18th and early 19th century documents.
The first mention that I have been able to find of the building is a Lease and Release of 1707 between Mark Wright of Stowmarket, bricklayer and Mark Wright of Stowupland, the younger, grocer. Presumably father and son. Mark Wright the Elder as a bricklayer may well have been the builder of the Pot Of Flowers possibly on the site of an earlier building. The building is described in this document as, “three messuages then two in Haughley Street [as Bury Street was then known] sometime in occupation of John King and Peter Balls, afterwards of John Crow and John Tricker, abutting upon the messuage of the late Timothy Folkard [a blacksmith who died 1705] and then of George Richardson, and upon the messuage sometime of John Keeble and then of Robert Rosier to the North”.
The name Pot Of Flowers does not appear in this document but between 1711 and 1714 Robert Mixter appears in the overseers accounts as paying poor rates for a public house by the name of the Flowerpot, he is also listed as licensee in the notebook of Devereux Edgar in 1714. Also in 1714 and 1715 Thomas Birch and Daniel Thorpe paid poor rate for “part of the Flowerpott” so the building must still have been 2 separate houses. The property was mortgaged to Nathaniel Fairclough of Watsfield, gentleman, son of Nathaniel Fairclough in 1731. On the death of Mark Wright the premises described as “a Common Inn called the Pot Of Flowers with 2 other tenements adj. occupied by Wm. Spencer, John Bird, Robt. Prentice & Widow Diaper” passed to the ownership of Nathaniel Fairclough, and he or his son in 1762 mortgaged the property to Rev. Garnham of Bradfield St.George. Fairclough died soon after and in 1764 Elizabeth Spencer purchased “The Flower Pot & 2 tenements adjoining” and Mortgaged them to Sam. Wright of Stowmarket, Surgeon. Elizabeth Spencer dying in 1780 left the Pot Of Flowers to George Clements & Eleanor his wife & then to their children or John King there nephew, worsted weaver. George Clemens died in 1802 and the following year the pub and a stable situated opposite was sold to John Aldrich, brewer of Stowmarket and owner of a number of other inns in the town. He immediately advertised the property in the Bury and Norwich Post as “annual rent very low, £10, good stabling, Bowling Green, Several large clubs, entire business of two day Lamb Fair”. The Lamb Fair meadow was on the opposite side of the road as was the bowling green mentioned. It seems to have been usual for the landlords of the Pot Of Flowers to rent this meadow from the Parish of Stowmarket for their own use for the rest of the year. Clemans had died in debt and a further notice in the Bury and Norwich Post appeared assigning debts of G. Clemans to John Howe of Wetherden, Liquor Merchant & John Aldrich, Brewer. But Aldrich had debts of his own and in 1805 all his inns and property in the town were handed over in lieu of debts to £12,000 to his father in law, John Cobbold, brewer of Ipswich.
Henry Ungless was now the landlord of the Pot Of Flower. Ungless had been associated with several other inns in the town. In 1802 he was as the Swan and after he left the Pot Of Flowers he was at the White Horse and then the White Hart. Between 1814 and 1817 a Peter True appears in the overseers accounts as paying poor rate for the Pot Of Flowers and from 1818 to 1819 it is Thomas Girling. Vestry minutes between 1818 and 1824 show that the Town Rents were then collected at “The Flower Pot”. In 1820 Samuel Gosling is listed in overseers accounts, and from 1821 to 1830 William Smith.
Sometime between 1830 and 1833 The Pot Of Flowers changed its name to The Tyrrell Arms. By tracing the property through each years rent book it is obvious that the Tyrrell Arms and the Pot of Flowers were the same building. During the period of the existence of the Tyrrell Arms there is no mention in directories or rate books of the Pot Of Flowers, this and the fact that The Tyrrell Arms is known to have been owned by John Cobbold leads me to believe that they were in fact the same and a change of name had taken place, with the name reverting to the Pot Of Flowers some time between April 1844 and 1846. Stowmarket`s local historian Harry Double in one of his books on the Stowmarket gave the location of the Tyrrell Arms as the premises which is now John Symons, hairdresser but gave no evidence for his identification.
The use of the name of the prominent local family the Tyrrells of Gipping Hall and Stowmarket may have been an attempt to change the pubs image and go “up market”. As with some modern day attempts to appeal to a different clientele by changing the name and image of the establishment this seems to have been unsuccessful or unpopular and the name reverted to the original. The first mention of the name Tyrell Arms is in the will of William Smith written in 1833 where he is described as “of the Tyrrell Arms” the name is also mentioned in deeds of other property in Bury Street and also in the rate books from 1836 to October 1843. Although William Smith is listed in the 1844 Whites Directory at the Tyrrell Arms, he had in fact died at the end of 1843 aged 65, and his widow Nancy Smith is listed in the rate books for April and July 1844. Deeds show that she later remarried and became Ann Rice. She is listed as Mary Ann Rice in Oct 1845 and Ann Rice in January and July 1846 The last time the name Tyrrell Arms is used in the rate books is April 1844, in the entries from then until July 1846 the property is not given a name. In a directory for 1846 the name Pot Of Flowers returns and as the entries in directories were often collected some time before publication the return to the original name may have been made in 1845.
In April 1848 John Broom appears temporarily but in October of the same years Ann Rice is back, John Broom returns in January 1850 and Ann Rice died in the April, aged 76. From then to after 1855 John Broom occupied the pub, in 1859 John Williams is listed as being here, in 1863 and 1864 Edward Pain was in residence. Abraham Diaper took over from him and was landlord for over 20 years, his name is seen on a drawing of the Inn sign made in the 1880’s. 

Abraham Diaper was succeeded by Samuel Pope who as well as being a publican is also listed in directories as Joiner, Plumber, Builder, & Sewing Machine Proprietor in 1885 and as steam sawyer, carpenter and undertaker in 1896, and in 1900 just as a Steam sawyer. The list of landlords from 1900 until the closure in 1978 is,
1906 Herbert James Oliver
1915 Walter Joseph Montague
1929 Mrs Florence Montague (remarried as Jackson)
1949 William Tracey Good
1950 Alfred C. Montague
1951 William Tracey Good
1956 Edwin Charles Hill
1975 A. E. Hawes
1978 Mrs D. E. Hawes
1978 Closed

STOWMARKET HISTORY AND HERITAGE
2007
email neil@stowman.plus.com