The pub and its surrounding village, Penn Street are brimming with history. The pub's earliest deeds date back to 1730 and it is known that it opened as a pub on 1st June 1798.

The building that is now known as The Hit or Miss was originally owned by the furniture makers, Dancer and Hearne.

​

In 1860s William Hearne, a labourer, and his wife Eliza, a lacemaker, established The Hit or Miss pub, amalgamating a series of cottages. Legend has it that there was a one-man workshop shed behind the pub where chairs or parts of chairs were made.