This building was probably once an inn called " The Woodhouse". In 1797 it was sold to John Linnett and part rebuilt in brick in a crude style and renamed the "Half Moon Inn".  The project was probably an opportunistic one to gain as much as possible from canal traffic.  By the mid-19th century it was known, perhaps by its signboard only, as the "Sun, Moon and Stars" (or even, ... and Seven Stars").  The newly formed parish council in 1895 persisted in calling it the Half Moon.