Iden Green · Goudhurst · The Weald of Kent
The Peacock
Inn
A fourteenth-century alehouse on the old smugglers' road — log fires, low beams, and seven centuries of Wealden tales.
The House
Built when the Weald still ran on wool, hops and timber — and standing on the same crossroads ever since.
The Peacock began life as a humble alehouse, set where the lanes meet at Iden Green just east of Goudhurst. Its bones are genuinely medieval: a timber-framed Wealden building dating to the fourteenth century, weathered by six hundred winters and softened by woodsmoke.
Today it keeps the old country-pub spirit alive — a traditional, family-run house pouring proper Kentish ales, where a large open log fire still warms the bar. After a brisk walk across the Weald, it remains exactly what it has always been: somewhere to thaw out, pint in hand, beside the flames.
At a glance
Tales of the Trade
The smugglers' inn
The Peacock's reputation was made in the dark. The old inn carried deep smuggling connections, and the Jubilee Book of Goudhurst keeps the stories alive — chief among them William Brackfield, who held the pub and was widely known across the parish as a smuggler.
The officers found nothing. She did not move. It is the kind of tale the Weald specialises in — quiet defiance dressed up as a harmless old lady by the hearth — and it has clung to the Peacock for generations.
Behind the Bar
The keepers of the Peacock
Find Us
Pull up a chair by the fire
Seven centuries on, the welcome hasn't changed. A proper Kentish pint, good company, and the best seat in the house — the one nearest the flames.