The pub was on Butterley Hill, next door to the house in which the first Butterley (later Ripley) Co-operative shop was opened in 1860. The pub predated this: in 1841 Rebecca Birks was shown on the census as a beer seller.

In 1861 Rebecca’s daughter Elizabeth married Joseph Ellson, an iron moulder and licensee of the Brittania Inn, Waingroves, and the Greyhound licence transferred to him, though in the 1871 census Elizabeth is shown as running the pub. During their time there, they hosted gooseberry and vegetable shows. Joseph died in 1879 and the licence transferred to Elizabeth, who continued to host the annual gooseberry shows.

Their son William took over until he died in 1894, when his widow Martha (nee Argyle) took over until 1920 when it passed to her daughter and her husband John Henry Lane who kept the pub until 1948 when it was sold to Offiler’s Brewery, with Walter Beaman, who had also married into the Birks family, as the landlord.

They left in 1966, meaning that the extended Birks family had run the pub for over 130 years.

The brewery later sold the pub and it was renamed as The Out of Town Inn. It closed in 2018, and has lain derelict since then, until in 2026 only the facade remained, soon to be replaced by housing.

With thanks to Jane Brownson’s book “Ripley Pubs” (2018)