Folklore: Odd pub names

Subject: BS: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 03:41 PM

Just off the Manchester, UK, inner ring road there is a pub called the 'Land O' Cakes'. Puzzled me for ages so I decided to look it up. The only sensible reference I can find is that Robert Burns used it to describe Scotland in one of his poems.

A little further out, just near the commonwealth games stadium, is the "Spanking Roger". Imagine what I found when I looked that up! Again there is a sensible expanation - A famous racehorse in the 1750's. There was also a piece of music ny Thomas Nuttall of the same name but which begat the other I know not!

Heading further out, on the A6 towards Derbyshire, is the "Soldier Dick". Excellent pub with good beer and food and a roaring fire for those chilly days agter you have come down from the high peak. The story of it's name is on the wall in the bar so you will have to go to find out;-)

Anyone any more? One I don't know is on the A34 near Congleton on the Cheshire/Staffordshire border, "The Bleeding Wolf". Any of our Stafordshirites know?

Cheers

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Bert
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 03:45 PM

The Rorty Crankle out near Tunbridge is one of my favorites.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: sian, west wales
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 03:52 PM

There are two in the Whitchurch/Llandaf area of Cardiff: The Cow and Snuffers, and The Pineapple. Don't know the histories.

There's The Square and Compass just south of Fishguard, which isn't so unusual - it's an old quarrying area - but what I like is that the village is also called The Square and Compass. I like that; pubs rule!

There's one locally called Y Polyn (the Pole) because it used to be a toll house - so it refers to the gate pole. I think it might have been burned down during the Rebecca Riots in the 1800s. People knew how to party then.

sian

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 03:57 PM

Consulting my Penguin Dictionary of Pub Names I find

The Queens Head and Artichoke - the story dates from Henry VIII's sister who was married to a King Louis. Pub (London NW1) long gone apparently

Oh I could bore all night with this book ...........

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 04:10 PM

There's one near Crewe called The Romping Donkey

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Michael
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 04:23 PM

There's one in Glapwell, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, UK, called Then Young Vanish. This is somthing to do with a racehorse too.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 05:02 PM

There is a pub in or near Prestwich called 'The Railway & Naturalist' I have a vague memory of seeing one many years ago called 'Hark To Towler'. In Yorkshire somewhere I think. Anybody got any history on these?. Burl

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 05:04 PM

I have a pal whose next book is going to be about commoners who had pubs named them. I'll pass on the Soldier Dick. Anyone know of others?

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 06:21 PM

'The Queen's Head and Artichoke' is still there and still running as a pub.... I can see it from my office window.

I've been in 'The Green Man and French Horn' and BOTH 'I am the only running footman' pubs.

My favourite has to be the 'Bat and Goldfish' on the Great North Road.....

In Weymouth, they revamped a pub and wanted to call it 'The Oar House'. No-one had any problems with this until they invited the well known (then) hostess and "brothel keeper" (sex for luncheon vouchers) Cynthia Paine. It's called 'The Boat House' now....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Leadfingers
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 07:57 PM

Being a complete M C P I was always taken by the one on the A34 not far from Stratford on Avon-- The Silent Woman. also in Greys Inn road is a Grey Lion,the only one I've met.And nearly every road running North South from the A4 to the A 4020 has a White Hart on it.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: greg stephens
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 08:01 PM

Burl, there may be a "Hark to Towler", but I think you might be misremembering the "Hark to Bounty" in Slaidburn.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Compton
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 08:09 PM

Going off on a slightly different thread, whilst reading the JD Wehterspoon magazine (I get it for the gardening column) the reason they call a lot of their pubs "The Moon under Water" ..is that George Orwell thought it would be his ideal fictional pub. So there!..meanwhile back on the quest!

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Strupag
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 09:25 PM

At Mousterlan near Quimper in Britanny, there's good pub called "Scoubi Du"
Like gaelic, I know that Du means black but Scoubi?
I've asked locally and no one seems to connect it with the american cartoon character.
Any Breton Mudcatters?

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 10 Jan 03 - 10:13 PM

I once stumbled across "The Frog and Wheatgerm". In Lincoln, as I recall.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Billy
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 12:06 AM

There used (30 years ago) to be a pub N of Liverpool called the "Duck Inn". The main entrance to the bar had a flight of about three or four steps down to the bar floor and a big oak beam at head height. If you were looking down at the steps and didn't duck as you went in, you banged your head on the oak beam. You could sit at the bar and watch for new patrons as they got bonked on the way in. Only bar I ever knew where you could get a headache before you got a drink.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: mouldy
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 02:36 AM

There's a "Hark to Mopsy" in Normanton, near Wakefield. The sign shows a foxhunt, so I guess Mopsy's a foxhound. There's one near us called the "Odddfellows". The spelling is deliberate - I heard it stemmed from a signwriting accident years ago, and stuck.

Over in the Peak District there's a pub called "The Knockerdown", and I believe that refers to a ghost found in lead mines, of which there used to be very many in the area. In Castleford there's a modern "family" type pub, built near the Freeport Designer Village, called the "Singing Chocker". It's a nod in the direction of the coal mines that were in the area. The last one has just shut. The chocker is the guy who fits the chocks (or pit props, as they are often called).

Andrea

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 03:43 AM

The Frog and Wheatgerm is part of a hideous chain, one of the flood of the spurious pub names, spawning names with the juxtaposition of an amphibian and other unlikely object, hence the Frog and Wheatgerm, Frog and Radiator, and others. There was a chain of the first pub restaurants which had whimsical names instantly which made you want to eat elsewhere, like the 'Slug and Lettuce' and the '(single syllable insect) and Cauliflower,the name of which I remembered last night and now have completely forgotten. They were famous only for having those silly sorts of names and toilets decked out in faux green marble with red and orange flecks in it.... you had to be careful not to chuck up in there, or you would never see where it went.

There is a delightful pub called 'St Peters' Finger' a corruption of St Peter ad vinculum, known locally as 'Pete's digit', but it's so nice I'm not telling you where.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: ced2
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 04:35 AM

There's the "Second West" in Lidget Green in Bradford never figured that one out as there is no First West(or East etc.) Was there ever a "Saggar Makers Bottom Knocker's Arms" in Stoke, Burslam or any other pottery town?

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 05:11 AM

Greg, You could be right. It was a long time ago and only fleetingly glimpsed from a car window. I also like the one Sian mentioned, The Cow & Snuffers, in Cardiff. Burl

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Big Tim
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 05:18 AM

Is "Slug and Lettuce", near Binfield, Berkshire, too common to be worthy of a mention?

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 05:49 AM

There is (or was)a Hark To Towler in Bury, Lancs. As Mouldy suggests, this sort of name suggests a foxhunting reference.

There's a Banks's pub in the Black Country called The Struggling Monkey - so named after a pit pump (a Monkey) used to drain water out of the pit and which wasn't quite up to the job!

LFF

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 05:50 AM

Square and Compass would be a reference to Freemasons. I agree with Liz on the Frog and 'xxx' - We have a Frog and Firkin. Moon under the Water was way before Orwell - Most places have a reference to some local nutter trying to get the moon out of a pond - Moonraker, Moon in the water and Moon under the water being common references. I wouldn't take notice of Orwell anyway - he couldn't even find Wigan Pier, which, incidentaly, has it's own pub now as well!

No one caring to take a stab (pun intended) at the Bleeding Wolf yet?

Cheers

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Noreen
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 06:12 AM

Burl and greg, there used to be a "Hark to Towler" very near me on Walmersley Road in Bury but it's now called the Towler Inn. There is still a "Hark to Dandler" a bit further out towards Ramsbottom. This and the "Hark to Bounty" at Slaidburn are all named after foxhounds.

A bit more about Lancashire pub names from the following site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/lancashire/the_knowledge/2002/10/31/hark_to_bounty.shtml:

Bounty was apparently the favourite hound of Squire Wigglesworth of Slaidburn. One day in 1875 he was in the Dog Inn in the town, having a drink while his pack of hounds waited outside. Bounty started howling - presumably because he'd picked up the scent of a fox - and the squire shouted "Hark to Bounty". For some reason they called the pub that from then on.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Snuffy
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 07:19 AM

Is there still one near Ince called "Th' Sign's i'th Cellar"?

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 09:34 AM

Noreen, thanks so much for that. I had the right name but the wrong county. Maybe I saw the pub on one of my many trips to Bury to sing at the folk club. Burl

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Schantieman
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 10:24 AM

There's one on the Scotland Road in Liverpool called 'One Flew Over the Throstle's Nest'. Any guesses at the derivation? They've copped out completely on the sign and just painted the name on it. The last sign usd to have a question mark.

The Frog and Wheatgerm etc. are not only spurious and generally unpleasant (in conception, decor, food and beer, I imagine, although I have not yet plucked up the courage to venture into one) but have also done away with the original names of the pubs, some of which were hundreds of years old.

Moan moan, grumble grumble

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: banjomad (inactive)
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 10:36 AM

There used to be a pub called the 'Sour Milk Hall ' in Halifax, Yorkshire, and not far from me was one called the 'Starving Rascal'
Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: breezy
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 10:53 AM

There is only one 'Silver Cup' and its in Harpenden.
So as 1 its odd.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Peg
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 11:25 AM

These names are hilarious! I must get that book.

I once ate at a Slug and Lettuce in the Cotswolds; but it was rather old-fashioned and quaint, not one of those chains...

I like The Haunch of Venison in Salisbury...

peg (gearing up for her trip to the UK on Monday!)

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 11:55 AM

Manitas has somewhere a book with all sorts of weird pub names in... can't lay my hands on it at present...

Big Tim, if you'd read all the posts, you'd have seen that the Slug and Lettuce had already been mentioned not 3 posts before yours.

I was in 'The Case is Altered' on Boxing Day... another corruption of a latin phrase, but I don't know which one!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Morticia
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 01:55 PM

There's The Chocolate Cat between Andover and Devizes.Must pop in and ask them about that some day.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Les in Chorlton, Manchester
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 02:25 PM

We drove through Gorton, Manchester, today and I forgot to look but I seem to remember a puib called The Pig and Ball Bearing. I think it was re-named so after a song or story by Mike Harding.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Beccy
Date: 11 Jan 03 - 02:34 PM

The Old Toad, Rochester

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: mouldy
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 02:50 AM

Although I can't remember all the results (dammit), a few years ago the students at my son's uni went round the pubs in Trefforest, near Pontypridd, and switched any moveable letters in the names that were on the walls of the buildings. I know the "Knox" became the "Knob". I believe some other quite interesting names arose.

Andrea

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Manitas_
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 03:43 AM

I think The Case is Altered was a corruption of something like Casa Alta. There is at last another one somewhere up the A5 near Stoney Stratford.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 04:27 AM

The name isn't what makes this one funny - just the combined businesses attached to it. In Ennistymon, Co. Clare, Ireland: "Nagle's Bar/Undertakers."

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 05:27 AM

And I have just remembered. Only funny for discworld fans. I went in a bar in Tralee called Sean Oggs.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Banjo-Flower
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 07:33 AM

For LOTR fans there's always the Middle Earth in Whitby

Gerry

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Noreen
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 08:29 AM

Yu're welcome, Burl. Unfortunately no longer a folk club in Bury. :0(

Schantieman, the Throstle's Nest has been on Scottie Rd in Liverpool for a very long time (a throstle being a thrush). It became One Flew Over the Throstle's Nest when a certain film became popular- just can't think of the name of the film...

Les's post reminded me of a good pub in Droylsden, east Manchester, called The Pig on the Wall. Built on a former pig farm, the locals say that the farmer used to lift the pigs up on the wall to watch the world going by... There's a lovely collection of all sorts of pigs (china and stuffed) behind the bar.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Peg
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 10:14 AM

We have one called The Squealing Pig in Boston with all sorts of pig art and curios too; good food too!

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Merritt
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 11:09 AM

Great thread.

Understanding that the "pubs" most folks describe here are likely a bit different from a bar in the U.S., my favorite bar name is:

   Woody's OK
Or Isn't He?

Am not sure of the actual origin of the name, although I've asked. The construction of the last part is common phrasing in the rural areas around northeast Wisconsin. It's located in the City of Oconto.

- Merritt

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 11:21 AM

Ye Olde Bung Hole

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 11:21 AM

LtS and Manitas

Between the Case is Altered (Eastcote) that you were in on the Herga Mummers tour on Boxing Day, and the Royal Oak you ended up in, there are 2 more Case is Altereds - one in Wealdstone High Street, and one in Old Redding. I think they may derive from the Peninsular War against Napoleon.

I've a feeling that the Starling in Pinner is unusual. There's a Pineapple in Amersham.

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 12:08 PM

A really disgusting Plastic Paddy pub in Copenhagen called O Murphys. Met plenty of Murphys, but never met one with an O before.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Les in Chorlton, Manchester
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 12:36 PM

Noreen,
what a chord you struck with The Pig on the Wall. My mother was waiting with a sick friend for an ambulance. When it arrived the sick friend recognised the driver and said 'he was that daft bugger who put a pig on the wall to watch the band march past'.

I loved this expression but never found it's origin. In 1978 I joined Gorton Morrismen and some time later danced for free beer at the opening of the very 'The Pig on the Wall' in Droylsden.

That Pig may have been a new one or an upgrading (probably down grading) of an older pub.My mother and her friend lived in Ellesmere Port (50 miles away on Mersyside) and had never heard of Droylsden.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Mudlark
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 03:44 PM

Dont know about the pub itself, but it had a great sign. Located just across the street from Monk'sBar Hotel under the Wall in York, a copy of E. Munch's "The Wail" very well done in wood.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: ced2
Date: 12 Jan 03 - 03:53 PM

Me thinks there's a game to be had here.... rather along the lines of Mornington Crescent... Can I try "The Red Pig" for a starter!

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 01:02 AM

Then there's pub nicknames.

The Fox and Pelican in Grayshot, Hants is often refered to as The Dog and Duck.
Then just a few miles away down on the A3 the The Black Fox, referred to affectionately as The Flat Box.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 03:20 AM

And all Boar's Head pubs are invariably called The Whore's Bed by the witty(?) locals.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: DG&D Dave
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 03:50 AM

In Derbyshire I have had music sessions in:
The Knockerdown (accurately described by Mouldy above).
The Quiet Woman (is this an oxymoron?).
The Hobbit (Now happily reverted to its old name the Red Lion).
The Hurt Arms (form a local family name).
The Morris Dancer (in Lichfield Staffordshire).
Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 04:10 AM

?"Spanking Roger"?

My lawyers will be in touch!
(Slug & Lettuce is now a chain of pubs)
RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Odd pub names
From: Mr Happy
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 04:24 AM

There's the 'Headless Woman' just outside Chester.

In the pub's car park there used to be a lifesize & very gory looking but lifelike statue of this unfortunate decapitated female complete with bloody neck,bones & arteries showing & 'with 'er 'ed tucked underneath 'er arm'

Sometime during the 70's, a car smashed into it & the statue was removed but never replaced, which was a pity as the effigy had always been a great landmark for directing travellers.


About fifteen miles away from Chester, on the fringes of Delamere Forest,there's Norley village which has a famous pub with a singular name.

A local story tells of the salesman new to the area who was looking for this establishment,

He stopped a villager to ask 'Where's The Tiger's Head?'

Quick as a flash came back the answer, 'Four foot from his tail'!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Chippinder
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 04:33 AM

There is/was (I think its been renamed) a Pineapple in Leicester. Pineapple is quite common because it is a symbol of hospitality.
Chips

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: IanC
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 05:00 AM

Think my favourites are "The Trinity Foot" and (one with a story) "The Ram Jam Inn"

:-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Boozer
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 07:53 AM

How about The Black Bitch in Linlithgow - after the coat of arms of local nobs. They also have The Four Marys after the song.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 08:13 AM

Red Lion is the most common pub name in the UK and I've also seen several examples of Black Lion, Golden Lion and White Lion. However in south Manchester (Didsbury?) there is a BLUE Lion which takes it's name from the coat of arms of one of the local big wigs.
As I come originally from Eccles I don't suppose Land O'Cakes was a new pub situated there since I left

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 08:28 AM

My mothere had a biscuit tin with pub signs on it. I had several just up or near the A1. The Ram Jam Inn and Trinity Foot (after the local beagles) already mentioned as was the Silent Woman. It also had the Jamaica Inn (not an odd name). The one that I could never understand was the Jackson Stops with a picture of a White Horse. When I got round to visiting it (Ruddles from the wood and locally produced sausages) I found out that it's proper name was the White Horse but it had been up for sale for so long at one time that people started to refer to it by the name of the estate agents.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Redhorse at work
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 08:38 AM

" The Silent/Quiet Woman" was traditionally accompanied by a pub sign of a woman without a head. Presumably "The Headless Woman" on the Chester road was a back-formation from the pub sign.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: daithi
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 09:41 AM

The oldest pub in Bury (where I spent some time at school more years ago than I care to admit to) was called The Two Tubs - a name I've never come across elsewhere - is it still there, Bury-ites?
Just a few miles away in rochdale, on Ashworth moor, is a pub known locally as Owd Bett's. Its original name was something more prosaic ( but Elizabeth Ashworth was a formidable landady in the nineteenth century and the pub eventually took her name. A few years ago I believe the brewery/owners/magistrates/whoever officially changed its name to Owd Betts.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Noreen
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 10:53 AM

Two Tubs is still there, daithi, though things have changed around it (Robert Peel's still there on his podium though). I've heard there used to be a folk club there; it seems an ideal place for one... There are boards up inside telling the history of the name, but i'll have to come back to you on that.

Les, glad to bring back happy memories with the Pig on the Wall :0) When I first went there I believed the story (!) but I've since heard the decription in another context, that someone was so daft (or the place was so boring) that he'd put the pig on the wall to watch the band go by. So perhaps it's not a true story??! I believe the pub was built around the old farmhouse; it certainly is not a new building, and there are separate rooms and fireplaces which have the feel of a farmhouse.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Sarah
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 11:07 AM

On the pig theme, we have a pub called The Sair Inn at Linthwaite near Huddersfield, apparently named for the local word for 'sow'.

There's a Squinting Cat near Harrogate and one called The Spite (I think near Otley, but I could be wrong). To counter that, there is The Friendly, in Friendly near Halifax.

The Rose and Crown in Holmfirth is always known locally as The Nook (well you try finding it!)

Oh, and we have a Silent Woman in Slaithwaite - reference is definitely a decapitated female monarch.

Cheers
Sarah

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Noreen
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 11:07 AM

Good thread, gnomish Dave :0)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 12:08 PM

Bert - "The Rorty Crankle" which was at Plaxtol was closed down the last time I drove past.

There's a pub near Plumstead Common called "The Who'd 'a thought it".

I'm surprised that Leadfingers didn't mention the "Crown and Treaty" where Uxbridge folk club runs. Originally called "The Treaty House" it was the site of an unsuccessful attempt to draw up a treaty to bring an end to the Civil War.

Central London has some interesting pub names:
"The Crown and Two Chairmen" - there's also a "Two Chairmen",
"The Magpie and Stump",
The famous "The Olde Cheshire Cheese" (rebuilt in 1667 - I wonder why),
"The Sun and Thirteen Cantons".

Near Hextable, Kent, there is a pub called "The Ship at Puddledock" which sounds very nautical except that Puddledock Lane which is the reason for it's name is nowhere near the sea or any waterway.

I have heard that the reason why so many pubs in SE England are called "The Chequers", is because of the "Chequer Tree" (Wild Service Tree) from the berries of which a form of ale was brewed in the autumn.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,JohnB
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 12:26 PM

The downstairs bar at the Mono Cliffs Inn in Mono Centre, Ontario, Canada goes by the name of "Peters Cellars" It has several pictures of the Pink Panther Inpector around. You have to take what you can find over here :)
JohnB

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Schantieman
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 12:31 PM

There's a Cheshire Cheese on the Wirral, but I s'pose that as it's in Cheshire that might not be too surprising

S

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 12:36 PM

The Sair Inn also used to feature an enormous pet duck that hung out in the bar, didn't it.

This thread is naggingly familiar, somehow; but at my end of Sheffield are The Closed Shop, The Old Heavygate and The Bell Hagg; plus, perhaps, The Noah's Ark, The Freedom View and The Firwood Cottage; and there used to be a Bull and Mouth in town, but I don't know that that's particularly unusual.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: HuwG
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 02:07 PM

Malcolm Douglas, I remember the "Bell Hagg" from sixteen or seventeen years ago; I may be wrong but I think that Bell Hagg is an area of rough, boggy moorland not far from that bit of Sheffield.

Sheffield still does have a "Frog and Parrot" which serves its own-brewed rocket fuel (e.g "Conqueror, o.g. 1066; "Old Croak" etc); I recall that the place was (is ?) notorious for the piles of comatose students outside at closing time, which caused obstruction to traffic on the highway.

Near me (in Glossop, at the other end of the Snake Pass) is the "Lantern Pike" in Little Hayfield (Lantern Pike is a nearby hill). The "Moon and Sixpence", which once featured folk evenings, can be ignored; it is a made-up name, dating from only ten years ago, it used to be the "Fleece".

Odd places I have drunk in; the "Printer's Devil" on New Fetter Lane in London (apparently a printer's devil was some sort of publisher's gopher in days gone by); the "Halfway House" on Cathedral Road in Cardiff (I never did find out, halfway to where ?); the "Cat and Fiddle", on the road of that name between Buxton and Macclesfield, notorious for kamikaze motorcyclists; the pub of that name has been there for centuries, where on earth did the name come from ?

Glossop boasts a "Grapes" inn; there is nothing apparently sinister about that, but York has a Grape Lane, which was a hastily-renamed "Grope Lane"; it was a mediaeval red-light district.

An oddity; the "Snake Pass Inn", on the Snake pass, mentioned above, was once just the "Snake Inn", named for the coat of arms of the Cavendish family; and the road (the modern A57) took its name from the inn, rather than vice versa.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jan 03 - 10:30 PM

Aw dammit Dave, that's sad, My Ex wife used to work there.

Then there's pubs where there's nothing left but the name. The Princess Alice on the corner of Woodgrange Road, Forest Gate, got bombed during the war and the dirty great hole in the ground was still called The Princess Alice for years. I don't know if it ever got rebuilt.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mouldy
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 03:18 AM

There's one on the A64 just out from York on the road to Scarboro/Whitby called the "Four Alls". The sign is quartered with four heads painted on it. I think it may have something to do with the "Hear All, See All..." type of motto, but I'm not certain. I'm sure somebody out there knows.

Andrea

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mouldy
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 03:19 AM

Oh, and there's another "Pineapple" on the road between Normanton and Wakefield.

Andrea

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 03:46 AM

In Oakland, California, USA there's a bar called "Egbert Souse's," named for a W.C. Fields character (Fields's character insists it's pronounced "SooSAY").

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Chippinder
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 03:51 AM

The Four Alls on the A64 - how well I remember. that's the first place, apart from Church, I ever sang in public. Sooooo long ago!
Chips

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 04:02 AM

Andrea, there's a pub near me called the Five Alls, with a picture of 5 Kings on it.

The Moon and Sixpence in Tintern...

Ella

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 04:58 AM

Huw g: "The Halfway" is halfway between the cities of Cardiffff and Llandaff, although urban sprawl now means Llandaff is part of Cardiff
Mr H: "four foot from his tail" was not a snappy rejoinder, just a quote from Lonnie Donegan.

And to add to the list: "The Adam and Eve Inn", Paradise.

Nigel

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Schantieman
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 05:20 AM

All this business about bowdlerising the Grope: There used to be (still is?) a Gropec*nt Lane in london - used chiefly for that purpose.

I think a printer's devil is a piece of equipment, possibly a piece of moveable type.

And what's the story behind the frequently seen Eagle & Child ?   

S

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: JennyO
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 05:23 AM

I found a few when I googled with "unusual pubs names", but anyone can do that.

Here are a few in Oz - just in Sydney:

Blue Cattledog Tavern
White Cockatoo
Doo Duck Inn
Elephant's Foot Hotel
Bald Faced Stag Hotel
Bald Rock Hotel
Nag's Head Hotel
Red Cow Hotel
Red Tomato Inn
Cauliflower Hotel
Bird in Hand Hotel
Friend in Hand Hotel
Four in Hand Hotel
Jolly Frog Hotel
Jolly Swagman
Bat and Ball Hotel
Rag and Famish Hotel
Rose Shamrock and Thistle Hotel(we call it the Three Weeds)

Also, the Erskineville Hotel is known as the Erko, and you can get food named after it, such as Erkoburgers and Chicken Erko.

There's another pub worth mentioning, not in Sydney, but a couple of hour's drive away, called the Loaded Dog, after a famous story by Henry Lawson, also the name of an excellent folk club run by Sandra in Sydney - Hi Sandra.

Jenny

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Schantieman
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 05:33 AM

I stand corrected. Just done a google search for printers devil and found this:

http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/journalism/mikesbio.html

So there we are.

S

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 07:47 AM

Bert, I can think of two famous London Pubs which were demolished, but where the name lingered on:

The Angel, Islington
The Elephant & Castle (I think that they built a new one later)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Geordie
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 07:55 AM

Mu favourire is Lamorns"s Wink in south Cornwall. Also, The Split Crow, can"t recall where. Then there is the Bell and Steeleyard in East Anglia.
Great thread.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 08:16 AM

Bert,

The Princess Alice was rebuilt in the same location and is still a geogrphical marker for London Transport.

Schantieman, the Eagle & Child is from the arms of the Stanley family who were Earls of Derby. There are several pubs near me named after them, The Eagle & Child, Forest Gate, The Lord Stanley and the Earl Derby (aka The Banjo House) in Plaistow and I think the Eagle at Snaresbrook was originally an Eagle & Child. The family owned quite a bit of land in the area when the pubs were built.

The story is that a child was dropped by an eagle and adopted into the family.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Redhorse at work
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 08:19 AM

The "4 Alls" are usually the king who rules all, the bishop who prays for all, the soldier who fights for all, and the farmer who pays for all. The first three may vary in content or number, the last doesn't.
Does anyone know the significance of "The Gate Hangs High" ?(Hook Norton among others)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Sarah
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 08:39 AM

Reply to Malcolm.

The Sair Inn did indeed have a large duck in residence at one time, I knew it well. It also had a dopey looking dog and several scrawny black cats which pissed in the corners. I think the menagerie belonged to Ron the Landlord's ex ex partner and all disappeared when she left. I must say it smells a lot sweeter now (now the pets have gone, that is).

Cheers
Sarah

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 10:13 AM

There are several Hanging Gates in Cheshire. One used to have a small five barred gate as the sign with the following painted on the bars:

This gate hangs high
And hinders none
Refresh and pay
And travel on.

Manitas is right about about the Eagle & Child. Plenty of them in Liverpoll/South Lancs, round the ancestral homes of Knowlsey and Lathom

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Gareth
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 10:22 AM

In Chatham, on the Lower Rd., to Gilligham there used to be a pub called the "Good Intent" now demo;ished for the northern access road.

The sign was a storm swept yacht.

Incidently doesn't the "Frog and XXXX" series arrise from the late Tony Handcock's fictional local, "The Frog and Nightgown" ??

Gareth

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Schantieman
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 10:53 AM

Thanke you Manitas. They come from round here (Liverpool) but there don't seem to be ant pubs of that name here!

Steve

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 11:28 AM

I thought that "ant pubs" were usually called "The Nest".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 11:42 AM

J D Wetherspoons seem to take more care in naming their pubs. Locally (Cardiff) we have the:
"Cayo Arms" named after a Welsh Nationalist
"Ivor Davies" named after Ivor Novello
"The Prince of Wales", taking its name from the theatre which stood on the site. (remembered more recently as an 'Adult' movie house)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: gnomad
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 03:07 PM

There was a Clickem Inn in N Lincolnshire (said to be from counting sheep) but I've a feeling it reverted to being the Talbot. I was also puzzled by the Spider's Web in Cleethorpes.

Whitby boasts(?) a Bottom House, also one called First In, Last Out.

One of the lake district passes used to have a Drunken Duck, was it you GtD?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 04:14 PM

I've drunk in 'The trip to Jerusalem' in Nottingham, reputedly the last port of call before the crusades for whichever king it was, probably a Richard or an Edward.... had amazingly huge dinners, I had a big Yorkshire pudding with veggies, served in a plate that looked remarkably like a glazed flat cap.

There is a 'Quiet Woman' in Dorset, near Wareham... it has a 'motto' above the door "Let no man cause a riot, now that the woman be quiet". Can't remember the story behind it, but the pub was used by Thomas Hardy in 'Return of the Native'.

There is an author who writes crime novels based around strange pub names, she has written books called 'The trip to Jerusalem', 'The case is altered', 'I am the only running footman' and one called 'The horse you rode in on' which I'm assured is a bar in Baltimore.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Jimmy C
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 05:06 PM

There is one on the New Lodge Road in Belfast called " The Starry Plough" not very unique I admit. My brother managed one somewhere in England called " The Knight Inn" again not unusual except it leads into a great motto " Have a Night out at the Knight Inn".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: PageOfCups
Date: 14 Jan 03 - 05:17 PM

When I visited Ireland last year I was somewhat appalled to see a pub sign in Ennis that featured Homer Simpson (M.T. Pockets). I traveled 3000+ miles and still couldn't get away from that guy! D'oh!!

PoC
who actually likes the show, but at home, thanks!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mouldy
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 02:52 AM

Ahh.... The Trip to Jerusalem! That was where my husband's stag night crawl "mislaid" the best man in 1976 when he went to the loo (and they moved on). He never located them again that night. It was the first pub I took my son to at 8 days old (had to sit outside 'cos of licencing laws). Unfortunately I think public health has cleaned the pub up from what it was all those years ago. They removed the cobwebs several times in the past from the model ship that hung over the upstairs bar, and I bet they've done something to combat the sand that dropped into your beer from the cave roof of the upstairs bar. God bless beermats.
Re the Four Alls sign: I think there is a king's head on there. The Hanging Gate rhyme also used to be on a gate-style sign at a pub on the Ashbourne road out of Belper.

Andrea

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Schantieman
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 05:01 AM

Happy memories of the Trip when I was a student in Nottingham. Sand in the beer was part of the fun, I seem to remember.

Was your son OK onhis own outside at 8 days? ;-)

Said to be the oldest pub in England.   Any other offers?

S

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Suffet
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 06:24 AM

There is Maggie's Left Tit in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The sign board pictures a close up of the midesection of a serving wench carrying a tray of ales with her naked left breast sticking out from her blouse. Her nipple is just about touching one of the foamy heads.

I haven't been there in more than 20 years, so maybe the Tit is but a memory.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: winterchild
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 06:25 AM

The author that uses pub-names (actual pubs, btw) for her book-titles is Martha Grimes, and she had a couple of neat ones you guys haven't hit on yet, but I can't find the information just now, or quite remember them....

This is one cool thread!

WinterC

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 06:33 AM

Although "The Jerusalem Tavern" (55 Britton St, Clerkenwell, London) is hardly an unusual name, I recommend it to anyone who hasn't tried it. They serve "St Peter's" beer brewed at St Peter's Hall microbrewery near Bungay, Suffolk. The selection of unusual draught and bottled beers is incredible.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 06:38 AM

Sorry, I should have added this link where you can find out about all the beers which they brew.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 08:02 AM

I am amazed that no Hullaval9tes have told the Story of the "Push" in Beverley.

Especially as I believe it was called the Punch and Judy or some such before the 70's.

Apparently it had a large sign on the door as you entered that said "PUSH" so it became lovingly known as "the Push". And eventually it was only known as "the Push" and the name was changed officially. The last time I saw it, it was stilled called that.

And that is no leg-pull.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Noreen
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 08:15 AM

gnomad says: There was a Clickem Inn in N Lincolnshire (said to be from counting sheep) but I've a feeling it reverted to being the Talbot
I remember it the other way round... it's always been known as the Click'em, but the sign said the Talbot, with a picture of the dog. In more recent times the pub sign has been changed and it's now officially called the Click'em. Can't remember whether there's a picture / what it is, though.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: IanC
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 08:30 AM

"The Push" reminds me of "The Scratching Cat", though the story's rather sadder. In the middle of nowhere, in deepest Cambridgeshire, was a pub called "The Downing Arms". It said that on the sign, and it really was in the middle of nowhere. I don't think that there were more than 6 or so people within walking distance of the place, so it had no real locals to speak of. It was a road house, and had quite a few visitors, even though it was off the beaten track.

For decades, it was well known for good beer and real honest English food (steak and kidney pudding and such like) though the "restaurant" only had room for about 8 people. For decades, certainly since World War II, it was always known as "The Scratching Cat". Nobody ever called it "The Downing Arms". The pub changed hands once or twice, but it never changed.

Then, finally, it got a landlord who had ideas. He got it into Egon Ronay, the food went decidedly upmarket and decidedly non-English. He also got rid of the old "Downing Arms" pub sign and replaced it with a new one saying "The Scratching Cat". The pub became very fashionable and very popular. For about 18 months. Then the punters went elsewhere and the regulars had already gone.

The next landlord, after the last one had gone bust, struggled with keeping it going and introduced microwaved freezer food. Nobody called (well, I did one day but never again).

The pub was closed and stood deserted with the 2 year old "Scratching Cat" sign falling off. Finally it was sold as a house and the barns converted into dwellings.

Gone forever.

:-(

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,NH Dave
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 11:32 AM

Back in the late 70's, when I was living in Thetford, in Norfolk, there was a pub located in what was supposed to be the birthplace of Thomas Paine called, fittingly, The Rights of Man.

    Good place. A free house with some of the old pub games.

    Dave

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Micca
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 12:26 PM

Schantieman, "The Royal Standard of England" at Beaconsfield also claims to be the oldest pub!!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Wynn
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 12:35 PM

Martha Grimes wrote "The case has Altered" and we have a pub in Bolton called "Sally Up Steps" but can't find any history on why it should be called so. I must call in and ask one day.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Neighmond
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 07:31 PM

My great, great etc. great grandparents ran an inn near Prophitt's Crossing (Sp?) that was called the Lion and the Lamb...pretty common name I am told. Their kids had one called the Broken Drum and They had a nephew that ran one called the Blue Yodel someplace down south. I can't tell you if any are still open.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: BanjoRay
Date: 15 Jan 03 - 08:23 PM

The Dynevor Arms, Pantyffynnon near Ammanford in South Wales is a good one. It's always known locally as the Tenby, because a charabanc trip to the seaside town only made it as far as this pub, back in the twenties. Details of this superb pub are here.
The Bell Hagg near Sheffield lost its name briefly a few years back - it became the John Thomas. I wonder why they changed it back? Maybe somebody told them what it meant.
Cheers
Ray

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mouldy
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 03:32 AM

Schantieman - no he wasn't outside on his own, and he got his share of the draught Bass when we got home.

There is/was a pub in Wakefield called the "Tut'n'Shive", part of a chain of the Tap 'n' Spile type of thing. The term is used in the building trade for a bit of a bodged up job, I think, and there were all sorts of odd joinery, plumbing and hardware effects in the place, including doors on the ceiling. My abiding memory of it is seeing Castleford Longsword standing in a circle sharing a half-pint glass of a 9% beer because, even though they were going to share it, the jobsworth behind the bar said she wasn't allowed to serve that one in more than half pints. They'd only wanted a bit each to try, but a half between about 8 men...

Andrea

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Bert
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 03:44 AM

Thanks Dave,

I knew about the Elephant and Castle but not about The Angel.

Manitas, thanks for the update on The Princess Alice. I'm glad it didn't die for ever.

And as a kid, I used to live in a flat just across the road from The Eagle and Child. Us kids shared a front bedroom and were often woken up by the drunks rolling home at chucking out time. We'd go to the window and watch them reeling up the street singing. Ah! precious memories.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Jon Dudley
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 03:58 AM

Folkies may not know that Bob Copper was once the landlord (in the mid 50's) of the pub with England's shortest name -The 'H.H' Inn, Cheriton, Hampshire. HH stood for Hampshire Hunt, and the name is still on the building, long since converted to a private residence...indeed for a while it served as a Bat Hospital...yes that's right, when the injured nocturnals had flying accidents they were taken there to recover. It was in this beautiful area of Hamshire that Bob collcted some fine songs from some remarkable people and thus formed the basis of his book 'Songs and Southern Breezes'.

Sorry, I digress but I wonder how many 'oldest' and how many 'smallest' pubs there are in England? I've visited two that claim these distinctions...Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem (oldest, in Nottingham) and The Nutshell (smallest, in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk). Now let's wait for further claimants!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: HuwG
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 04:42 AM

Dave Bryant and Bert, the "Elephant and Castle" is a corruption of the "Infanta de Castilla", which is how Catherine of Aragon was known before she became first Mrs. Arthur, Prince of Wales, then Mrs. Henry VIII.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Shuffer
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 04:46 AM

There is a pub called "The Pelican in her Piety" at Ogmore in South Wales, History of the name and the local area can be found on their website http://www.pelicanpub.co.uk/

Good food, good beer and a roaring logfire just right after walking the dog on the beach on a cold winter's Sunday morning.

Geoff

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: IanC
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 05:19 AM

Actually, HH is by no means the shortest pub name. Many East Anglian towns with large numbers of pubs seem to have got fed up with giving them names at all and started calling them simply by a single letter.

Whittlesey, for example, had an "A", a "B" and a "C". Though latterly they were usually referred to as "The Letter A" etc, the pub signs and the names were originally simply the one letter. In Whittlesey, only the Letter B survived into the 1990s and the last landlord / landlady renamed it the "Bee" a few years ago.

:-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Schantieman
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 05:36 AM

Andrea: Glad to hear the baby got his share of the Bass! Is he now a confirmed addict?

There is a claimant to the 'Smallest Pub in England' near here, in Southport. Called the Lakeside Inn (coz it's guess where) it has good beer too. It has been demonstrated to be big enough for Longsord and Rapper dancing - and a small audience too - so is probably not actually the smallest!

Steve

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: IanC
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 06:30 AM

"The Hole In The Wall", Colchester, also claims to be the smallest ... room for 6 people standing.

:-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 07:24 AM

HuwG,

Another possible origin of the Elephant & Castle is that it derives from the arms of the Cutlers Company.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,The Fantum
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 08:00 AM

The Kicking Cuddy in Coxhoe Co Durham
A cuddy is a horse

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 08:44 AM

Manitas: The Cutlers co. Coat of Arms dates from after Henry VIII and so maybe the derivation works the other way

Nigel

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: IanC
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 08:55 AM

Nigel

You're probably wrong, nonetheless. Apparently, the word Infanta wasn't used in English until 1600 and your story dosn't explain the inevitable Howdah on the pub sign.

Here's a useful comment ...

... it's often asserted that the name is a corruption of Infanta de Castile, usually said to be a reference to Eleanor of Castile, the wife of Edward I (in Spain and Portugal, the infanta was the eldest daughter of the monarch without a claim to the throne). That would put Elephant and Castle in the same class of pub name as those I mentioned two weeks ago but, like the story of the way Goat and Compasses came into being, it's almost certainly false.

Not the least of the problems is that Eleanor of Castile wasn't an infanta (or at least wasn't known as that - the term only appeared in English about 1600); the one infanta that the British have heard about from school history lessons is Maria, a daughter of Philip III of Spain, who was once controversially engaged to Charles I. But she had no connection with Castile. The form Infanta de Castile seems to be a conflation of vague memories of two Iberian royal women separated by 300 years.

The castle here is actually a howdah on the back of the elephant, in India a seat traditionally used by hunters. The public house called the Elephant and Castle was converted about 1760 from a smithy that had had the same name and sign. This had connections with the Cutlers' Company, a London craft guild founded in the 13th century which represented workers who made knives, scissors, surgical instruments and the like. The guild used the same emblem. The link here is the Indian elephant ivory used for knife handles, in which the Cutlers' Company dealt.

The real story here is actually rather more interesting than the one usually told, but a lot more British people have heard of an infanta from history lessons than know about the medieval emblem of a trade guild.

;-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Larkin
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 09:03 AM

There's the cat and Fiddle in the Peak District and The Swan with Two Nicks in Knutsford and I seem to remember that there's also a Swan with Two Necks somewhere in Cheshire and it's obviously a corruption of Two Nicks ( The marks put on the beak for identification??)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: IanC
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 09:08 AM

Swan Upping

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 09:46 AM

In Friedberg (Hessen), Germany, the oldest pub existing on the main and market street is Die Dunkel = The Dark One. You enter the pub through a gothic portal (first recorded 1333), down some steps into a narrow long room with no window. Hence the name.
Home cooking, excellent local beer. Irish (and other) singers welcome.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Schantieman
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 09:56 AM

The Trip to Jerusalem dates from the 13th century, I think, so it beats Die Dunkel (although that may be the oldest in Germany!) but come to think of it, isn't there an older one in Nottingham itself? The Salutation Inn, if memory serves.

The Hole in the Wall is obviously smaller than the Lakeside Inn.


Steve

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 09:59 AM

I knew we'd been here before. See also Name That Pub (bar)

Nigel

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 10:02 AM

The Skirrid Inn (Wales)would seem to pre-date Ye Old Trip To Jerusalem. But I suppose you're looking for the oldest pub in England, Not U.K.

Nigel

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 11:14 AM

Although it's not as small as some of the pubs mentioned "The Little Gem" (I don't think it was named after the lettuce !) in Aylesford village, Kent is quite small. At least it's large enough for Linda and myself to sing in, with a small audience as well.

The link to Swan Upping was quite interesting - I used to go up the Thames with them on my boat and we had some good sessions in some of the pubs. The landlord of "The Two Brewers" at Shoreham, Kent (now no longer a pub) used to be a member of the crew of the Vintner's "Hat" boat.

Wrotham, Kent, has a pub called "The Three Postboys" which I haven't seen elsewhere.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 12:17 PM

There was talk not long since that the Bell Hagg was up for sale and doomed to become bijou residences, but I don't know what the current state of affairs is. Dark rumours about the last(?) landlord, anyway.

I was forgetting The Q on the Corner, which was in Paradise Square in Sheffield. It's long since been converted to offices, but worth a mention if only as an historical note; the famous Blind Fiddlers used to meet there in the late 18th/ early 19th century.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Train Guard
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 12:46 PM

Nothing to do with a race horse!

   "In the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the greater part of the property in this area of Manchester was acquired by the Mynshull family. Barbara Nabb, the widow of Thomas Samuel Mynshull, became the sole heiress of this estate upon his death in 1755. One fateful day in 1769, she attended the fashionable Kersal races and met Roger Aytoun. 'Spanking Roger' (after his pugnacious manners, and not a reference to some personal habit!), six foot four inches of a handsome physique in military uniform, swept the lady off her feet. Less than one month after this meeting, the young Scotsman and the sixty-five year old widow were married in the Collegiate Church.
    Aytoun nourished a military career. With some financial assistance from his wife, he raised his own regiment, the 72nd Regiment of Foot (Manchester Volunteers) to serve in the latter stages of the American War of Independence. He paraded the Manchester streets with a watch pinned to a banner, promising it to the day's first recruit. Other times he would challenge likely candidates to a fight – on the understanding that they would enlist if he won! The local archive still preserves a poster advertising a football match as a recruiting ploy. The Manchester Volunteers never went to America. Instead, they formed part of the garrison of Gibraltar, which was then besieged by the Spanish. The long siege produced conditions of great privation, and members of the regiment were driven to desertion and suicide. Nevertheless, Gibraltar was held.
    Aytoun returned to Manchester as a hero, but then revealed a dark side to his nature. Barbara died in 1783. Roger had squandered the entire family fortune by 1792, and had mortgaged the landed property. His debts were reduced (!) to over £11,000 by 1797, and finally cleared by the sale of Chorlton Hall. But Aytoun had already left Manchester for pastures new. He married another heiress in his native Scotland in 1794, and died a rich man in 1810! His entangled affairs resulted in land sales that led to a rash of speculative building on the south side of the town."

    I've pasted a passage from 'Discovering Manchester', a guide book 'wot i wrote', and available from Sigma leisure.

   Hurry while stocks last!

Regards,
   Train Guard

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Train Guard
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 12:51 PM

The Prestwich pub is a combination of the names of two former pubs. One was called the Railway, and probably originated round about 1879 when the railway through Prestwich was being built. The other would have been the headquarters of the amateur (working class) naturalists who visited Prestwich Clough (an attractive wooded area that still exists) in the late nineteenth century.

   Regards,
    Train Guard

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Train Guard
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 01:02 PM

Particularly common in Lancashire, where property was owned by the Stanley family, Earls of Derby - the family crest is an Eagle and Child. It relates to a family legend in which one of their offspring was stolen from his cradle by an eagle, but fortunately retrieved safely.

Regards,
   Train Guard

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: conan the blackburnian
Date: 16 Jan 03 - 05:59 PM

There wasa pub in Blyth called the Burglars dog alocal euphemism for an ugly woman

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Jan 03 - 04:04 PM

Alas, the Smiths' Arms in Godmanstone,Dorset, is no longer a pub... it did for a while hold the record as the smallest PUB being almost 6 sq inches smaller than the Acorn. There are smaller bars in pubs, but this was the whole pub, bar included.

Also in Dorset is a delightful place called 'Knights in the Bottom', also a pub, in a dip along a lovely road between Chickerell and Abbotsbury.


Martha Grimes - that was it.... There's another one about a fox too. Must get round to reading them again.


LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Jan 03 - 04:58 PM

Interesting about Roger Aytoun, Trainguard. Spanking Roger (Racehorse) Dam - Jolly Roger, foaled 1759. No mention of when Spanking Roger (Also a mare btw) was foaled but Roger Aytoun was at Kersal races in 1769! Coincidence? I think not... I wonder whether the horse was named after him or he got theidea from the horse?

The other thing. I looked into the piece of music by the same name. Written by James Nuttall of Rossendale. See this for further details. It seems James' father, John, was co-founder of a music 'club' in Rossendale on 1742. John was minister at Goodshaw Baptist Chapel until his death in 1792. James wrote the tune 'Spanking Roger' and I wonder why the son of a Baptist minister would name a tune after either a racehorse or a gambling (and womanising apparatly!) soldier?

I have not been able to pin down the tune but the Wrapper Band list it amongst their favourites here.

So, we come full circle. A Thread with no apparant music content has some after all! I think should be now counted as a classic!

(Are you listening, Joe...;-))

Cheers

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 07:15 AM

Anyone know the Spanking Roger tune btw? Should I start a new thread?

DtG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: pavane
Date: 20 Jan 03 - 07:24 AM

I used to go to one in Essex (Corringham) called The Cat Cracker. Nothing feline, it was an oil refinery term.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mouldy
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 01:50 AM

The Salutation in Nott'm isn't as old as the Trip, which goes back to 1189, and was reputed to be a watering hole for the crusaders. (Schantieman - the offspring now drinks mainly lager or vodka: where did we go wrong?)
The Sally is 13th or 14th century, I think. Both are in the Castle area, but of course you couldn't really get much closer than the Trip is! There was another pub just down from the Sally called The "Royal Children" and some used to say it referred to the Princes in the Tower.
A village a few miles outside Nott'm (Lowdham) has a pub called the "World's End". Then there's the "Bramley Apple" across from Southwell Minster. The Bramley was first grown in Southwell, and I think it may have been in the garden of the pub itself (before it was a pub). If not, it was in one of the nearby gardens.

Andrea

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,MC Fat
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 06:31 AM

The Muscular Arms in Exchange Square Glasgow plus a pub in the protestant part of Airdrie/Coatbridge called by it's nickname 'Lucky C*nt Murphy's'

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Lanfranc
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 06:50 AM

And then there's the "Antigallican" in Charlton, London SE - a reference to anti-French sentiment during the Revolution and after. There's supposed to be another "Antigalican" in Plaistow or thereabouts, but I've not seen it, nor have I come across the name elsewhere.

There is (was) a pub in Holland-on-sea, Clacton, called the "Roaring Donkey" which name always intrigued me.

Alan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 08:53 AM

My understanding is that the "Antigallican" was the name of a ship. The Charlton pub sign shows a ship. I don't know of an "Antigallican" in Plaistow, London - perhaps its Plaistow Green near Bromley or Plaistow in Kent?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 10:04 AM

As far as I know, an Antigallican was a generic name for a ship built to fight the French - or a person who advocated it. Perhaps Doug Hudson would qualify !

There's a pub between Chelmsford and Maldon just called "Cats".

There's a pub on the River Cam between Ely and Cambridge called
"The Five Miles from Anywhere No Hurry Inn".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Gareth
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 10:29 AM

The " Antigallacian" was also the name of a 'Newspaper' during the Napolionic Wars.

Tho speaking personally - remember - The French have never honoured any treaty that has not been enforced by the :-
Welsh Long Bow,
A British Broadside,
or
A Prussian Bayonet.

I challenge any Catter of historical bent to dispute this !

Gareth

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Ian
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 04:19 AM

The Romping Donkey see early ref was the nick name of I think THE RED LION it was just that the picture on the sign looked nothing like a lion. At one time a new landlord tried to change the sign but was forced to return it

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 04:39 AM

I know of several pubs officially named "The Black Swan" which are informally known as "The Dirty Duck".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Snuffy
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 09:19 AM

The former Black Swan in Stratford-upon-Avon has officially been the dirty duck for some time now.

Local signpainters were often no Michelangelos: there are several "Romper"s in Cheshire, which were originally Red or White or Golden Lions.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: HuwG
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 09:43 AM

There used to be a pub called the "Spread Eagle" in Hollingworth (it has since changed its name); the artwork on its sign featured a Romanov (Czarist Russian) double-headed eagle.

It attracted several local names during its chequered history: "The Skipping Chicken"; "The Tandoori Chicken"; "The KFC"; "The Squashed Budgie"; "The Roadkill Eagle" (or just "The Roadkill"); "The Flat-chested Bird"; etc.



The "Trap" (which was at one time a rather notorious den of iniquity) was known as the "Pony and Trap", in an odd piece of reverse rhyming slang (you can work out for yourselves what that phrase rhymes with). It was not entirely myth that the carpets there were so filthy with spilled drink that your shoes stuck to them. [It has since been redecorated, and has cleaned up its act].


----

Note to US and other non-British 'Catters: Public houses in Britain are represented in tourist books and Hollywood genre Sherlock Holmes films as being all tradition and olde tyme musick (sic). In fact there is not nearly as much continuity as one might think. If the pub is a "tied" house i.e. is owned or controlled by a brewery, the brewers will change tenants usually at the rate of every two years. Breweries often will force name changes and new decor and other gimmicks on the place, with each change of tenant.

"Free" houses are obviousy less vulnerable to the whims of a brewing interest, but the drawback here is that they may change their suppliers at little notice, and the beer [NOT the lager] may swing from being nectar to being poisonous with worrying rapidity. Still, they are often the best places to drink.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: jimlad
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 10:58 AM

Around here,Bolton UK,pub mames are often known by names derived from the signs hanging outside thus...

The Golden Lion-----------The Brass Cat
Black Swan----------------The Dirty Duck.
Eagle and Child-----------The Bird and Bastard
Dog and Partridge---------Dog and Duck


The above are obvious some are not....

The Kings Arms-----------The Canary(we are in a coal mining area and
                                    the miners had Canaries
Lawsons Arms-------------Three Pigeons(Coat of arms of the Lawsons)

Stanley Arms--------------Sally-up-Steps(Sally was a 19c Landlady)

The last three names have been changed by the breweries from the former to the latter to satisfy us natives.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Tábhairne
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 11:11 AM

There is a pub in Newry, Co.Armagh, n.Ireland called The Brass Monkey and has a big picture of a brass coloured monkey on the outside.

Pretty unusual, but it just comes from the saying to describe cold weather, "it would freeze the b*l*s off a brass monkey".
A brass monkey was acutually the device used for holding cannon balls in times past and when it became really cold, the brass would contract and the cannon balls would fall off!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 12:29 PM

There is a Mudcat thread HERE which tended to debunk that definition of Brass Monkey - post any further discussion on that topic there.

Two pubs in the Plumstead/Bexleyheath area were known by the ladies who had owned them in my parents' day.

"The White Horse" Wickham Lane was known as "The Fanny on the Hill". When it was rebuilt twenty odd years ago, the name was included on the sign, but I think it has been dropped now.

"The Royal Oak", Mount Rd, Bexleyheath, still has a small sign proclaiming it as "The Polly Cleanstairs" - my mother told me that the original landlady had been a skivvy until she came into some money.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Schantieman
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 12:50 PM

Hope it didn't drop on anyone's head! ;-)

We've got a pub in Southport called the Up Steps, which has several of them outside the front door. Beer's good, but it's a bit smoky.

Now I'm off to see about this brass monkey......I always thought is was a shot garland....

Steve

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 01:29 PM

I've just remembered The Shirley Poppy, called after the flower of that name. That's Shirley in Croydon, where that strain of poppy was bred, not one of the other ones.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Walking Eagle
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 11:28 PM

Leave Town on the Horse You Came in On pub in Fell's Point, Baltimore MD. U.S.ofA.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Banjoman
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 07:10 AM

When Harold Wilson was Prime Minister he was also MP for Huyton Liverpool and a pub there was named The Pipe and Gannexe after his style of dress.

In Ormskirk there was a pub called The Kicking Donkey and I used to know of one called The Eureka but can't remember where.

The Eagle & Child On East Precot Rd Liverpool was known affectionally as The Buzard & Bastard

There was also a pub in Liverpool named The Cockwell Inn but not to sure if that was its official name.

Drank once in London in The Case is Altered.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 07:21 AM

Then there's that one..in Bree I think..The Prancing Poney?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: jimlad
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 07:33 AM

We also had/have

The Strangled Leper and The Septic Ferret

The longest pub name in England is/was...

The Thirteenth Derbyshire Light Infantryman Arms

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Schantieman
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 11:05 AM

There are a number of "The Case is Altered"s, but I can't recall where I've seen them (see 'aging' threads).

Another pub in Ormskirk was (is?) Th'Buck i'th'Vine. I think they usd to have a folk club there too!

Steve

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: The Walrus
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 08:21 PM

There has been mention of "The Antigallican". I seem to recall that there was a pub of that name between London Bridge Station and Tower Bridge some 15-20 years ago (it might still be there), I only ever went in there once and that was enough (imagine all that is worst in an urban pub and it was there<1>).

Regards

Walrus

<1> Except the wide screen TV belting out football and/or continual MTV, in those days

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Taggart
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 07:31 AM

In Waltham Abbey,Essex is The New Inn.So what,there's New Inns everywhere,but the pub sign has a picture of a Wildebeast(Gnu).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 07:39 AM

In Bloomsbury Way,London WC1 is the recently boarded up Bull and Mouth,derived from another of Henry V111's sorties into France.The bull is Boulogne and the mouth is the estuary adjacent.Henry fought and won an engagement there opening up the route into Europe for him and his troops.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Taggart
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 07:45 AM

In Bishops Castle,Shropshire is The Three Tuns,which brews it's own beer and very good it is too.Whats odd/unusual about it is,that the local railway preservation society started there about 25 yearts ago,but the local railway last ran a train in 1932.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Taggart
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 08:21 AM

Yes The Princess Alice was eventually rebuilt,my mate Dave Berry(no not the famous one) got married there in the early 1990's.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Gurney
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 03:35 PM

We used to go to a club in Leamington Spa long ago, held at The Virgins and Castle. I don't think that I ever saw it in daylight....
Then I was involved in a club at The Cock and Bear in Nuneaton. It doesn't take much imagination to see what it was sometimes called, after lubrication.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: grumpy al
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 03:44 PM

Liz, sadly the knights in the bottom has been renamed the Victoria Original eh?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: grumpy al
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 04:09 PM

just remebered a pub in Reading I think, called The World Turned Upside Down

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Gurney
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 04:30 PM

And I just remembered The Rat Pit in Aldershot. It still had the pictures of a rat-killing-against-the-clock-by-a-man-and-a-terrier when I was there in 1959. (1959!!!!!)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: fogie
Date: 30 Oct 04 - 05:09 AM

Great thread
Way out in the sticks near where I live between Clun and Newtown- about as far from the sea as you can get, there stands a closed pub of great local fame called the Anchor that the wild Welsh used to cross the border to when their area was dry. It used to run rock music gigs late into the night. I cant remember how many times it was raided and closed down because of what went on in the early hours, but I do remember the pet fox that was chained up outside the door and used to scare the wits out of you if it jumped at you!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Joe_F
Date: 30 Oct 04 - 08:14 PM

"The Blue Bull, the Dragon, the Star of Wales, the Twll in the Wall, the Sour Grapes, the Shepherd's Arms, the Bells of Aberdovey: I had nothing to do in the whole wild August world but remember the names where the outing stopped and keep an eye on the charabanc." -- Dylan Thomas, "A Story"

"The Moon under Water" -- name of a fictitious pub described in loving detail by George Orwell in one of his columns.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 09:33 AM

"Moon Under Water" maybe fictitious for George Orwell, but a quick Google will find several in London, One in Manchester, Milton Keynes, Cannock....
Perhaps an allusion to Orwell, but perhaps earlier legend of the Moonrakers and the film "The Moonraker" (1958) had something to do with it.

CHEERS
Nigel

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Auldtimer
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 12:45 PM

In Kilmarnock, well known for it's conections with Robert Burns, there is a pub/resturant called The Parched Poet. However it is better known as The Poached Parrot.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Snuffy
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 01:29 PM

Nigel, I think you will find that all the Moon Under Water pubs are operated by Wetherspoons and have either beeen re-named or used to be banks, post offices etc. The name is definitely Orwellian.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Noreen
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 04:29 PM

Re Taggart's post about the New Inn whose pubsign pictures a gnu, I have this evening driven through the village of Newbald in the East Riding of Yorkshire where The Gnu. public house is directly opposite The Tiger.

Some competition there, I'll warrant!

And Snuffy, I believe you're right- the Moon Under Water Wetherspoon's "pub" on Deansgate in Manchester was previously a cinema. Nice place to drink, put I wouldn't call it a pub.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Joe_F
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 08:58 PM

"But now is the time to reveal something which the discerning and disillusioned reader will probably have guessed already. There is no such place as `The Moon under Water'.

"That is to say, there may well be a pub of that name, but I don't know of it, nor do I know of any pub with just that combination of qualities [scil. draught stout, china mugs, open fires, cheap meals, a garden, motherly barmaids, no radio, the solid comfortable ugliness of the nineteenth century, & the availability of pipe tobacco, aspirin, & stamps]."

-- George Orwell, _Evening Standard_, 9 February 1946

Did the Wetherspoons pay attention?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 02:20 PM

I accept that the pub name seems to be in use following on from George Orwell's writings. However, my comments about "The Moonrakers" give it a certain credibility as a pub name. Did Orwell just pluck a name from thin air, or was there a thought of this at the back of his mind.

Nigel

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Mikey joe
Date: 02 Nov 04 - 05:58 AM

I like the pub names from Little Britain:

The Scarecrow and Mrs King

&

The Chaka Demus & Pliers

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: muppitz
Date: 02 Nov 04 - 06:48 AM

Nottingham has a pub somewhere in the city centre called "The Frog and Onion", and once upon a time we had a "Slug and Fiddle".

Also, not really an odd name, but our "Pitcher and Piano" is a converted church!

muppitz x

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Bernard
Date: 02 Nov 04 - 12:39 PM

The Swan With Two Nicks...

This is often seen as 'The Swan With Two Necks', which is an incorrect interpretation...

In the UK, all swans belong to the Queen by law, with the exception of the Vintners' swans on the Thames which have two 'nicks' (or notches) in their bills as distinguishing marks.

This may well be more widespread (or even inaccurate!) than I've indicated, but is given as the explanation of the pub name...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Bitch Linlithgow
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Mar 05 - 05:42 PM

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Haruo
Date: 20 Mar 05 - 05:59 PM

I always thought "Pig & Whistle" was a strange one (though not unique, as I know there are identically named premises in (at least) Seattle, San Francisco, Pattaya (Thailand) and London. However, at least as odd as the image the name conjures up is the etymology, from "Piggin (and) Wassail" of peripatetic Christmas toasting fame.

Haruo

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mandoleer
Date: 20 Mar 05 - 06:53 PM

The UpSteps in Birkdale, Southport was originally Bankfield House, but as you have to go up steps to get in (very unusual in Southport pubs!) the name stuck and has officially been changed. The Guest House is a bit odd as a pub name, and Southport also has The Cheshire Lines (despite having been in Lancashire - now Merseyside) because it was near a terminus of the aforesaid railway. The Eureka in Ormskirk is in Halsall Lane, and so far as I know, Ormskirk still has the unique Snig's Foot (a snig being a grass snake). Liverpool has The Flat House, and The Paraffin Oil Store, apart from The Roscoe Head and Doctor Duncan's. Liverpool also has a modern pub called the Cockwell, which for the first part of its existence had the word Inn after it's name. For some reason it was changed... Further afield, just outside Drybrook in the Forest of Dean there is The Wonky Donkey.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Bill the Collie
Date: 20 Mar 05 - 11:02 PM

There used to be a pub in Bristol called "The pen and filofax", much frequented by the suits.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 08:19 AM

Years ago, when the daughter was 3,the Boy asked about a slightly odd pub name (the Hurt Arms in fact).. I explained about where pub names come from. Daughter stayed very quiet .. then when I'd finished piped up "I know some pub names Daddy... the Flying Snail.. the Tree Snail... the Ground Snail.. the Flat Horse and Slug"

I don't know why gastropods figured so strongly, but I've never come across a better name than that last one.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: JennyO
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 08:50 AM

Then there was that pub in Canberra in Oz, where Mudcatters met a couple of years ago at the National - called the Wig and Pen. Sounds like a pub for lawyers. I don't know, but I suspect that might in fact be the reason for the name.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,furg
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 09:14 AM

There are two pub's in Leuven in Belgium one called the 'Nod' and around the corner and up some stairs 'Wink' - why these names are not in the local language is i believe linked to the fact that they do (or at least once did) belong to an Irish seminary in the same time.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 10:37 AM

I have seen two pubs round here in the Midlands called "The Gate Hangs well" which always struck me as odd but my favourite pub name is from a few years ago when I lived in London. There was a fairly grotty bar under the arches of Cannon St Railway Station called "The Bouncing Banker" which of itself was not very interesting until Roberto Calvi, God's Banker, was found swinging from a rope under the same bridge.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,The Barden of England
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 10:58 AM

There's 'The Dirty Habit' just by trhe Pilgrims Way in Hollingbourne, Kent.
My favourite nickname was 'The Trout & Knacker' for the Salmon & Bull that was on the corner of Bethnal Green Road and Cambridge Heath Road in the East End of London

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 02:16 PM

Two in the Maidstone area of Kent.

The "Who'd have thought it", and the "Duke without a head".

Don T.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Cats
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 05:12 PM

There used to be a pub somewhere near Brighton called the 'Jovial Whippet'.. Is it stil there?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Snuffy
Date: 21 Mar 05 - 07:55 PM

Daughter (aged 4): What's that pub called, Dad?
Me: It's called The Sun
Daughter: What's it called at night, then?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 22 Mar 05 - 09:19 AM

"I have seen two pubs round here in the Midlands called "The Gate Hangs well" "

This used to be on the Gate Hangs Well between Whaley Bridge and Chapel en le Frith:

This gate hangs well
And hinders none
Sit down, refresh,
And travel on.

The reference is to the turnpike gate, where you had to stop to pay road tolls up to about 1880.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 22 Mar 05 - 09:48 AM

There was/is a pub named the Blue Lion somewhere on the south side of Manchester, which I seem to recall being told was the only one of that name in the country

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Noreen
Date: 22 Mar 05 - 10:23 AM

Hey Raggy, a Google search is useful to check the veracity of such sweeping statements....

How's my clock?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Big Mick
Date: 22 Mar 05 - 10:32 AM

From the first minute I met you, Noreen, I wondered how your aul clock was!!! ....singing tooraloora-loora, tooraloora-loora, tooraliay

Mick, ducking and running for cover.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Mar 05 - 10:40 AM

Lamorna's Wink..In Cornwall.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Noreen
Date: 22 Mar 05 - 11:12 AM

Oh Mick- I thought you'd never ask!

*grin*

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: 8_Pints
Date: 22 Mar 05 - 08:40 PM

The Davenport Arms in Woodford, Cheshire bears the coat of arms of the local gentry. They had the right of summary execution of anyone caught trespassing in their woods. The point was graphically re-inforced by the felon's head with a noose around it, mounted above the shield on said coat of arms.

Consequently, the pub is known by the locals as the 'Thief's neck'! (or simply the 'Thieve's')

Bob vG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mad2
Date: 23 Mar 05 - 01:22 PM

how about The Gate Hangs Well -? great isn't it - why on earth would you name a pub after a spot of DIY ?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Andrew
Date: 23 Mar 05 - 05:49 PM

Not as good as lots here but I like the Dirty Duck in Stratford on Avon, or the White Swan if you approach it from the other direction

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Raggytash
Date: 23 Mar 05 - 06:40 PM

Your clock is wonderful, I cannot wait to wind it up again !

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Big Mick
Date: 23 Mar 05 - 07:06 PM

That ain't right, Raggy. I asked first. Tried to get her to stay an extra day in the States. I could have had that clocked fixed, wound, and purring along. But she had to get back to UK.....

.... singing tooraloora-loora, tooraloora-loora, tooraliay

Mick, the clockwinder

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Noreen
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 06:50 AM

Told you before, it runs on batteries!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mandoleer
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 07:15 PM

The Blue Bell at Barton (West Lancs) used to have a blue bell hanging with a similar legend, but with
This bell hangs well
And injures none
Refresh yourself, pay
And travel on.
One more not far from that, by the way, that I've never seen elsewhere, is the Running Horses. This is a canal pub, not far from the former Maghull racecourse, and by coincidence, it's in Bells Lane... Oh, and the Red Lion at Scarisbrick seems to have become the Blue Elephant, but I'm still trying to find out if it's become an Indian restaurant....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Leadfingers
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 07:45 PM

Worst renaming of Pubs is down round here - At least six pubs within five miles of me are now called MacDonalds !!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 07:46 PM

There's one near my hometwon called "The Office." That's so you can call home and say, "I'll be home late. I'm at the office" and you wouldn't be lying!

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 07:50 PM

"hometown" that is.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mandoleer
Date: 17 Apr 05 - 04:44 PM

Update on the Blue Elephant - it IS now an Indian restaurant. Slightly odd name for a pub is No 3 - in Blackpool. Used to be at number 3, but has expanded and now incorporates number 1 as well. Whitegate Drive? Pass it occasionally but can't remember road name....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Pogo
Date: 17 Apr 05 - 05:24 PM

[Schantieman, the Throstle's Nest has been on Scottie Rd in Liverpool for a very long time (a throstle being a thrush). It became One Flew Over the Throstle's Nest when a certain film became popular- just can't think of the name of the film...]

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. That in turn comes from an old children's rhyme...all I can recall is the last verse " one flew east and one flew west and one flew over the cuckoo's nest! "

Friend of mine came up with The Lusty Chicken as a good inn/pub name for something he's writing {O)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 17 Apr 05 - 08:23 PM

Pogo:

Lots of results on Google:

Children's skipping rhymes

CHEERS
Nigel

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Muttley
Date: 17 Apr 05 - 09:42 PM

There are just SO many names - and really good ones, too! Since I'm going to the UK in September / October - I may just have to record some of the names as I travel.

Here's an Australian offering: "The Coach and Horses" - probably not terribly original, but interesting in that it is in Ringwood, east of Melbourne and was a stopover and team changing station for the Cobb & Co. stage coaches in the late 19th Century.
Ringwood seviced the goldrush town of Warrandyte, 7 or 8 miles to the north as a market-gardening settlement and then hit a 'boom' of its own when antimony and a REALLY small amount of gold were discovered there. Antimony was the paying mineral and Ringwood was honeycombed with shafts - now the town hall and old police station and courthouse are all collapsing into old shafts that weren't backfilled properly and Ringwood Lake was an accident when the heavily mined areas around it sank!

The Coach and Horses served as a way stop to Warrandyte and as well to the goldfields of Healesville / Warburton and then up into the ranges.

Nice history to it.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mandotim
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 03:08 AM

A couple for the pot; along the lines of the pub called 'the office', there used to be a pub in Oldham called 'The Doctor Syntax'. Hence 'I'm going to be late, love, I'm at the Doctors; nothing serious, just feeling a bit wobbly...'. Another one was on the road from Saddleworth to Huddersfied, called 'The Floating Light'. Difficult to see how this pub on the top of the moors had anything to do with water, until you realise that the Stanage canal tunnel runs underneath from Diggle to Marsden. The tunnel has no towpath, so the boats were 'legged' through the tunnel, and the tow horses would be walked over the hills to meet the boat at the other side. They would stop at the pub for refreshment on the way. Must be a song in this somewhere..
Tim from Bit on the Side

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,pinion
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 03:18 AM

In Philadelphia, PA is the "He's Not Here" Tavern. It's great to hear the bartender answer the phone.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 04:31 AM

Nice to see this thread again - I had forgotten about it! Having visted the US last year it is nice to see pub naming traditions getting just as odd there. In downtown Edwardsville, Illinois, I found a really good pub with lots of real ales and a good atmosphere. It used to be called the Stagger Inn a few years ago but got itself a rather bad name as a rough place. They closed it for a while, re-fitted it and re-opened it with the name the Stagger Inn... Again! Yes, the whole bit including the again. Story goes that when the new management were deciding what to call it someone just said why not call it the Stagger Inn again. And it stuck:-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 05:35 AM

I think the Floating Light acquired it's name because in some weather conditions when the hillside is shrouded in mist all you can see is a floating light

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,vikster
Date: 03 May 05 - 08:53 PM

weve got

the turks head: who was this turk? and what happened to his head?
the liquorice bush
the orange house: which isnt orange, or a house and recently renamed shout.
scruffy murphys
the groggers rest
theres a swan with two necks in wakefield
the winter seam
the winding wheel
the king billy

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mandoleer
Date: 10 May 05 - 06:02 PM

Halsall area seems to have a minor thing abour Moors - there's a main road called Blackamoor Lane and (not in it) a pub called The Saracen's Head. Litherland has The Salt Box, which was originally the St Catherine's Hotel until the management bowed to local custom.
In Leyland, it was a thing about stars. There was The Seven Stars, The New Seven Stars, The Old Seven Stars, The Original Seven Stars and a couple of other versions of Seven Stars. Used to be a pub there that served the biggest range of cocktails I've ever seen, and which had a Sri Lankan guitarist accompanying the groups that played there - pub was The Leyland Tiger, after the buses of course. Long gone now, though.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Mrs_Annie
Date: 11 May 05 - 04:53 AM

I don't think anybody has mentioned the Eel's Foot in Suffolk.
It's an absolutely great pub, and this July there is a step dancing weekend happening there.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Bainbo
Date: 11 May 05 - 07:19 AM

Gnomad asks (a long way up the thread and about two years ago!) about a Lake District pub called the Drunken Duck, which a I remember from years ago, and which apparently derives from a landlady who used throw throw the beer slops out, where they'd be lapped up by the fowl around the pub. The last I heard of it, it's now an expensive restaurant of the kind that draws broadsheet food writers from London.

Also in the Lake District, I've enjoyed the Golden Rule in Ambleside (which has golden ruler hanging outside. Gold-coloured rather than gold, I suspect) and the Mortal Man at Troutbeck, near Windermere.

The last explains its name as being from the verse:
"O mortal man, that lives by bread,
What is it that makes thy nose so red?
Thou silly fool, that looks't so pale,
Tis drinking Sally Birkett's ale."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mandoleer
Date: 11 May 05 - 04:42 PM

The Eels's Foot sounds like a relation of Ormskirk's Snig's Foot.... Some more from Liverpool area - The Boffin (in Kirkby), The Dispensary, The Tenterhook, Gregson's Well, The Lutine Bell, The Philharmonic Dining Rooms (the most fantastically decorated pub you will ever find - well worth a visit if you are in the area - still all original, too), The Mole of Edghill, The Salutation, The Elm House (one in Bootle and one in Anfield!), and The Flat Iron. Lost, I'm afraid, is one of my favourites - Hengler's Circus. Oh, and I nearly forgot The Weighing Machine, and The Volunteer Canteen. One in Crosby, The Edinburgh, doesn't have an unusual name, but has (or at least had) a distinctive nickname. In the days when the teachers from my school used to go to the BS (Blundellsands Hotel - now flats), the sixth form used to nip out to the Bug and Bite knowing we were safe there. End of term, we used to have one in the Liver (rhymes with diver not river), another in the Vollie (see above) and one in the Raven (with a pickled egg there).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Chris Green
Date: 11 May 05 - 05:45 PM

When Wetherspoon's were opening what is now the Flying Standard in Coventry City Centre, they asked for suggestions for a name that would sum up what the City Centre is all about. I sent in two suggestions. The first was The Town Planner's Head. The second was The Bomb And Bulldozer. Strangely, they didn't use either of them!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 12 May 05 - 01:59 PM

Edinburgh has a former bank, now a pub, called "the standing order". Only worth mentioning as it always has about 10 diffrent real ales on.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 12 May 05 - 03:07 PM

There used to be a pub beside Emmet Bridge in Harold's Cross, Dublin, called the Old Grinding Young, with a sign outside showing an old man in heavily repainted 18th-century dress being fed into a grinder, while out the other sign came an equally heavily-painted and antique-dressed young man.

And of course there's the Dying Cow in Kilquiggan.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,marc
Date: 19 May 05 - 03:26 PM

We have a few pubs and we currently have one called the swan with 2 necks. We also used to have a king billies.
Probably the most unusual name of a pub we have is the shinnon, in chesterfield.
The Reason for the name is because the old lanlady used to always have her hair tied up and said it was called a chignon. A lot of misspelling later the pub was then called the shinnon and the name was officially changed

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Joe Fogey
Date: 19 May 05 - 07:23 PM

I live in Plymouth, There are at least two "Who'd Have Thought It"s locally, one in East Cornwall, the other, in Milton Combe in South Devon. There is also the No Place Inn on Eldad Hill in Stonehouse, and the Nobody Inn in Doddescombleigh. The Victualling Officers Tavern is also in Stonehouse.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Fidjit
Date: 20 May 05 - 06:49 AM

Are we missing the point? I wouldn't call any Weatherspoon's a "Pub". With the spate of so called Irish pubs abroad. We have, "The Dubliner", "The Kilkenny" and "Dirty Nellies", too. We also had an "O'Mally's" which was run by some pakistan brothers. We nicknamed it "O'Malicks" of course. But none of them are real pubs. I stay at "The Bee" When at the Straw Bear in Whittlesey. Didn't know that story. I'll ask Chris, the landlady, next time I'm there.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Terry K
Date: 20 May 05 - 01:37 PM

My local is "THE CROSS KEYS".

Nothing unusual about that, except that when the landlord was away on holiday, the lads changed the letters around (with a bit of applied ingenuity) so on his return he was greeted by the new name across the front of the pub

"CHEEKY TOSSERS"

Funny, he's not been away since.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 20 May 05 - 07:32 PM

Turks's Head is a knot - possibly the original Gordian Knot.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 30 May 05 - 12:29 PM

Driving home from Luton Airport, by way of side roads I came to the Reading village of "Skermit". Being Muppett fans I turned to my wife & said "Look, it's 's'Frog!"
Shortly we rounded a corner to spot the village pub. "The Frog"

Nigel

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 31 May 05 - 10:42 AM

In my German hometown we have an Irish style pub called "Dirty Duck" (sailor's dress?)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 01 Jun 05 - 08:20 AM

The Dirty (or Mucky) Duck is often a nickname for a pub called the White Swan or Black Swan.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mandoleer
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 06:24 PM

One I've not seen before spotted on A41 in Soho (Birmingham, not London!) - The Frighted Horse. Sign has a rearing white horse so far as I could see when driving past.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jun 05 - 04:29 AM

What about the Egypt Cottage in (I think) Dundee, there used to be a sign in there saying that if anyone could produce evidence of another pub with the same name they would get free beer (or something like that). Anyone remember the Royal Oak in Burton on Trent that was only ever known as "The Sump Hole"? This will run forever methinks.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Nick
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 01:58 PM

The Two Nicks could refer to Old Nick (the Devil) and St Nick (Father Christmas.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 04:40 PM

There is a pub nearby called 'The Ordinance' - no idea if there is a military connection to the site but the place where they made guns and ammunition for the army isn't that far away.... Someone in their wisdom tried to rename it 'The Orange Kipper' about 10 years ago. It never caught on and the next owners restored the original name. Ordinance is the miltary parlance for ammunition and arms. Ordinance Survey maps started out as detailed maps for the carriage and storage of weapons for the army.


The Rat Pit, Aldershot... I remember it well, but considerably later than 1959. In 1984, when I lived in Aldershot for a while, it was my preferred drinking hole when trying to escape from my crabby sister, her even crabbier husband and their first baby.... It used to be the preferred drinking hole of the SAS too.... Crabby husband didn't approve of this (he was RAMC) so it was the best place to avoid him!

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 01:28 AM

The strangest one I've heard of recently was a pub in Oldham, Lancashire called ' Help the Poor Struggler ' it was run by the famous British Hangman Albert Pierepoint.

eric

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: ad1943
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 03:14 AM

In Sydney, Australia we have the "Bull and Bush", the "Bat and Ball" the "Three Swallows" and the "Friend in Hand"

Allen

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 03:59 AM

Has anyone else noted the demise of proper painted pub signs?

Pubs in Britain are increasingly held by conglomorate chains who put their corporate image over everything, from menues to decor. This has resulted in the demise of the traditional painted pub sign. No more does the Green Man oversee the carpark at the pub near Mt Vernon.... the Queen Victoria looks no longer down her nose at the clientelle in the Broadway, and the Queens, formerly two beautiful ocean liners, is now just a nasty characature of the present incumbent.

Anyone else bemoan the loss of the traditional pub sign?

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Sonnet
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 05:14 AM

The Tommy Treddlehoyle near Barnsley celebrates a local character reputed to have ridden a donkey backwards from Pogmoor to Barnsley. The Postcard, Holmfirth, refers to Bamforth's who made saucy seaside postcards. Knocked down last year was The Bonny Bunch o' Roses,dating from the Napoleonic Wars, at Silkstone Common. Near Thurgoland is The Dog and Partridge, more commonly known as The Monkey. The Fat Cat is at Kelham Island in Sheffield and The Slubber's Arms (a weaving reference) is in Huddersfield.

Did there used to be a pub in Sheffield called The Wapentake?

Jay McS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Earl
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 05:29 AM

The pub on the corner of the road where I work used to be called the Volunter and had a hand-painted sign showing the recruiting sargeant and the young lad signing on.

When the Volunteer changed hands and was renamed the Mash Tun and the original sign was about to go in the skip when the landlord of the Waggon and Horses (on the opposite corner) rescued it and it now hangs in the bar of the Waggon and Horses.

The Volly used to be a traditional type pub with decent beer. It's now a youngsters lager, juke box and trendy food type of boozer that does not get my custom. The Waggon and Horeses is still an old style pub which I do frequent.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: JennyO
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 06:40 AM

I saw one on Saturday night in Oxford St Paddington (in Sydney), called the Elephant and Wheelbarrow. Strange combination!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Mr Happy
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 07:15 AM

echoing some of the sentiments raised above, it's a great pity & an affront to 'traditional' British pubs [and thier customers] that many of them suffer trendy alterations to not just the name, but also to the very fabric of the buildings- additional eating areas, extensions,adding huge tables to small rooms so there's hardly space to move, losing real ales to be replaced by watery, insipid chemical 'brews'.

one of the greatest tragedies of all being the change of use of pub premises.

in Chester where i live, there's 'the Old Nag's Head' in town which has been incorporated over the last 20 or so years as part of Boots chemists, & there's the Old Oak opposite which is part of Dixons.

in other parts of the area, 'Ye Olde Wheatsheaf' is an antiques emporium.

anyone similar experiences up their way?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:41 AM

In Halifax there is an old pub called The Old Cock, it is where in the back room, the Halifax Building Society was formed. When the brewers Marstons bought it they renamed it ' Ye Olde Cocke ' what the feck does that mean ? Thankfully now it's original name has been restored.

eric

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 11:06 AM

Somewhere around Farnborough/Aldershot way was the Tumbledown Dick, in West Sussex somewhere (I think) is the Shoulder of Mutton and Cucumber and near Petersfield is the Pub With No Name which has a name (The White Horse) but has had no sign swinging on its pole for many years.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Barrie Roberts
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 02:19 PM

Has Reading still got the 'Jack of Both Sides'?

Bilston, West Midlands, has a pub universally known as 'The Trumpet' despite the fact that its name is actually the 'Royal Exchange'. Rumour says it used to be called 'The Angel' and bore a sign with an angel blowing a horn. This led to it being nicknamed 'The C**t and Trumpet'. Who knows?

Then there was the white horse who went into a pub for a drink. The landlord served him a beer and said, 'It's funny you coming in here'.

'Why?' asked the horse.

'Well, the pub's named after you'.

'Really -- that's extraordinary. Why did someone call a pub "Eric"?'

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 01:39 AM

The Tumbledown Dick is just outside the Farnborough Aerodrome and it referes to Richard Cromwell who succeeded his father for a short time before retiring from public life. This reminds me of the 16 String Jack, named after a highwayman who sported strings on his jacket, just north of Ongar,Essex.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,AnneMC
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 06:45 AM

And way down under ( Palmerston North, New Zealand) you have "The Fat Ladies Arms".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 05 - 07:46 AM

Yes, Sonnet, I remember the Wapentake in Sheffield. Don't know if it's still there because I'm not.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 06:07 AM

Two nicks is almost certainly a reference to nicking the swans beak to tally the count of the Queens swans. A swan with two nicks was quite rare as it had survived two cenuses. There were, very occasionaly, swans wuth three nicks! Swan with two necks is usualy a corruption. Two nicks on it's own will be a more unusual shortened version of swan with two nicks. The usual abreviation is just the swan.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: IanC
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 08:00 AM

See Swan Upping (above) ...

"The Dyers and the Vintners Companies are now the only owners of private swans on the Thames, the Worshipful Company of Dyers marking theirs with a nick on one side of the beak, and the Worshipful Company of Vintners marking theirs with a nick on each side. The latter is the origin of the inn sign 'A Swan with Two Necks'. (i.e. two 'nicks'). Royal swans are now left unmarked."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Essex Girl
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 08:59 AM

There's a pub just off Hanover Square called The Black Lion and French Horn, but the picture on the sign gives it the nickname "Dog & Vomit".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Mr Happy
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 11:43 AM

Some time ago, I was working in a small village on the Eng/Wales border.

There were 2 pubs, The New Inn & The Old New Inn!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 12:38 PM

There's a The Case is Altered in Sutton Coldfield - can anyone explain the origins of the name?

I remember the Old Mother Redcap in north London - maybe Camden or Islington? I used to know the story attached to the name, but can't remember now. Something about a local witch?

What about The Quiet Woman? One pub sign I remember shows the woman in question carrying her decapitated head, and I'm sure I remember hearing a story about another one who was drowned in a well - very sinister.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Grimmy
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 01:04 PM

I (barely) remember from my student days in Hull two pubs:

The Botanic and The Zoological.

What's all that about?

(Are they still there, anyone?)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: rabbitlegs
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 01:46 PM

There used to be one called the Steam Pig in Huddersfield, a rugby league term. It's got some daft name now. I can also remember when the Drunken Duck was a proper pub. Now it.s the Rule every time!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 07:46 PM

"I saw one on Saturday night in Oxford St Paddington (in Sydney), called the Elephant and Wheelbarrow. Strange combination! "

How else is an elephant supposed to transport his trunk, Jenny?

Don T.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 10:52 PM

It's not a real pub, but it's one of the cleverest names I've seen. If I had a pub, I'd try to GET this name!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 10:53 PM

(that name will make more sense to US members, as it is a pun on a chain of shops here)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: iancarterb
Date: 26 Apr 07 - 10:58 PM

Ducks and swans seem big in Pub naming to judge by the posts above. In Poulsbo Wa there was or may still be a Ruptured Duck Tavern.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Snuffy
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 03:37 AM

"I saw one on Saturday night in Oxford St Paddington (in Sydney), called the Elephant and Wheelbarrow. Strange combination! "

In Worcestershire we have its counterpart - The Wheelbarrow Castle with a very annoying website

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 03:41 AM

Grimmy, Botanic and Zoological sound like they refer to gardens. V popular in Victorian times. Perhaps Hull had such gardens, and the pubs were named for them?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Grimmy
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 05:32 AM

Could be, Ruth, (hard to imagine Hull with gardens though!). The Zoological was tiny; it was like a hallway with a bar down one side, which I suppose is how it originated - a 'public house' was just an ordinary house licensed to sell beer.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Snuffy
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 07:05 AM

Not sure if the gardens were around in the 20th century or whether the North Eastern Railway built their loco shed on them in the 1800s:

HULL (BOTANIC GARDENS) NER Closed 14/06/1959. A brick built double roundhouse shed. Still standing, converted into a straight shed used for DMUs (Code BG) until 1987. Now in use as a fuelling point. Code HLB in 1948, 53B in 1950, 50C in 1960.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Grimmy
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 07:55 AM

Ruth, you're a genius:

"Hull Zoological Gardens existed between 1840 and 1862 in the Spring Bank area of Hull".

Sadly, the pub, "viewed by many as the best pub in the city", has since been bulldozed.

"Haworth, Adrian Harvey (1766-1833)
English botanist and entomologist whose Lepidoptera Britannica 1803 was the first complete description of several hundred British moths and butterflies. He was also an expert on succulent plants, with much of his work in this area being published in Synopsis plantarum succulentarum 1812.

Haworth was born in Hull. He was initially employed in a law office until, upon completing his articles, he became financially able to support his botanical studies and forays into the world of insects. In 1798, he moved to Chelsea in London and became a member of the Linnaean Society. He returned to Hull 1812 to found the Hull Botanical Gardens."

Sorted! Thanks people.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 12:41 PM

the farwig,somewhere in south east london/kent,any ideas.
Ans then therewas theBombay Grab,somewhere near ratcliffe highway,which referred to the pressganging of sailors for the bombay run.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 12:43 PM

the farwig was apparantly named after local methodists in the bromley area,strange for a pub to be named after non drinkers.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 01:01 PM

the Bombay Grab was in bow road,and during the 1940/50 was run by a pioneer.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 01:11 PM

THE LABOUR IN VAIN,my mother painted the pub sign of a mother washing her child,I think thius particular pub was in suffolk,.although there appears to be one in Sussex too.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 01:28 PM

I live in Ireland, and in Bantry, one of my nearest towns, is a pub known as The Clinic. The history of this unusual name is that at one time this was a hardware shop at the front, and a bar at the back, so hungover people in need of''the cure'', (or the hair of the dog), could go into the shop and sneak through to the bar at the back before the official opening time!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 06:48 AM

the Three Compasses.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 28 Apr 07 - 09:37 AM

After some of the sad news above ( I have happy memories of the 'Rorty Crankle' and the 'Two Brewers' and didn't know either of them had closed), it's good to see that the Blaxhall 'Ship' has reopened in safe hands, and is now a singers' pub again.

The 'Eel's Foot' at Eastbridge is still as good as it ever was, especially on a Thursday 'squit' night. And the 'Low House' (officially the 'King's Head')at Laxfield is a wonderful and unspoilt Adnams pub, though perdition take the appalling landlord who drove out the Tuesday afternoon song sessions.

Ipswich had an 'Oyster Reach', which was renamed the 'Ostrich' when the new owners assumed it had been a misspelling - in fact the 'Oyster Reach' was named after a stretch of the nearby river.

I'm feeling thirsty now.....a groatsworth of Old and Filthy, please, landlord!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 06:25 PM

The Jug and Bottle near Grimsby. Not a particularly odd name, but an interesting history. The pub is built on part of a former RAF heavy bomber base and the particular spot was the dispersal/parking area for a Lancaster bomber which bore the name 'J-Jug and bottle'.

---

Please note that anonymous posting is no longer allowed at Mudcat. Use a consistent name [in the 'from' box] when you post, or your messages risk being deleted.
Thanks.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: RTim
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 07:43 PM

There used to be a pub in Chipping Norton called - The Quiet Woman!

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: terrier
Date: 18 Jun 07 - 08:04 PM

Not an unususl name, but in Liverpool there where Two pubs opposite each other, both had the same name. The Gregsons Well. The one on the right (going into town) was the folk club home of The (Liverpool) Spinners. Both pubs now sadly only memories to an old scouser.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: vectis
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 11:25 AM

I had quite a few pints at 'The Drum and Monkey' in Ventnor, Isle of Wight when I was a lass. Is it still there I wonder?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 01:43 PM

Some of my old favorite spots would include:

The Elbow Room
Duggan's Yak 'N Snack
The End
Friar's Tuck
The Hole
The Jail
The Gas Station
The Orange Ogre
Beelzebub's

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Splott Man
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 02:02 PM

There's a Drum & Monkey near Brynmawr too.

And a Goose & Cuckoo up in the hills above Llanover.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 04:10 PM

One of my colleagues just mentioned a bar he once frequented, in Colorado - "Where The Sun Don't Shine." Obviously, they have no atrium....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 04:19 PM

Has anyone mentioned The Shoulder of Mutton and Cucumber yet. It's in West Sussex somewhere I think.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 04:27 PM

There is Kings arms in Hawkshead if my memory serves me right..If the bar was shut they used to tell you to go down the road to next pub on the left..It was called The Queens Legs and they were allways open..I went and there was no pub on the left..But I was highly amused..

---

Please note that anonymous posting is no longer allowed at Mudcat. Use a consistent name [in the 'from' box] when you post, or your messages risk being deleted.
Thanks.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,squirrel
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 10:13 PM

Theres a pup on wood street, Middleton, nr Manchester called WHO `D` A THOWT IT. Dont know who named the pub or what invention impressed him so

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,squirrel
Date: 29 Oct 07 - 10:39 PM

TO MANDOLEER:-
"The Mole of Edghill" refers to Joseph Williamson and his scheme to help the unemployed, building a network of tunnels in liverpool just to keep the navies in work the canals and railways were completed

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: theleveller
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 04:26 AM

There's a pub in Rutland, just off the A1, called The Jackson Stops. Originally it was called soemthing else but was put up for sale and took so long to sell that people began to use the name of the estate agent (Jackson Stops) on the board outside, as the pub name and it stuck. Wonder how many other pubs are called after an estate agent.

Just down the road, on the other side, is the famous Ram Jam Inn - I expect everyone knows the story of that name so won't go ionto it here.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 04:33 AM

No Idont ,please tell ,as Ihave often wondered.Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Bill S from Adelaide
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 09:46 AM

I used to drink in the Same Yet near Middleton, the sign painter came to do a repaint and the landlord, when asked what should be painted said "Same yet" ie same again.
Amazed no-one has mentioned the Piddle Inn or StPeters Finger in Dorset.
We have the Elephant and Wheelbarrow and a couple of Moon and Sixpences in Perth as well as a Durty Nelly's and other gimmicky stuff.
Pity about the Smiths Arms in Godmanstone, Herga danced there in 75. We sang the inevitable Dorset is Beautiful and everyone in the place added a couple of verses. Apparently the license was granted on the spot by the King when he stopped at the Smithy and asked for a beer, to be told that there was no license to sell beer.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: theleveller
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 10:01 AM

Sorry Captain, didn't want to bore people more than usual.

Well.....apparantly a chap was drinking there when the landlord had to change a barrel and the bloke offered to help. They went to the cellar and the chap knocked out the bottom bung and beer poured out. He said to the landlord, just ram your finger in there while i get a tap. He then knocked out the top bung and the beer frothed out. He said, just jam another finger in there while I get a spile (or whatever it's called). The landlord did this and while he was thus engaged, the fellow dashed upstairs, took all the takings and made off on the landlord's horse. So there we have it - The Ram Jam Inn. Bet you wished you'd never asked.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: IanC
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 10:51 AM

This version of the Ram Jam Inn story usually goes something like this ...

An 18th Century guest at the inn couldn't pay his bill, so in recompense he offered to show the landlady how she could get two different ales from the one cask. He drilled a hole in a full barrel in the cellar and got her to ram her thumb into the hole to stem the flow. He drilled another in the other side of the barrel and again got her to plug the hole with her other thumb. While she was thus 'jammed' keeping the ale in the barrel, the guest fled, leaving the landlady with an unsettled bill and sore thumbs.

The version I had, which is somewhat different, is about two tricksters who performed a rather more elaborate con on the landlord of the pub.

:-)
Ian

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 11:55 AM

There was a Shoulder of Mutton not far from where I grew up in Walsall. People used to call it the Old Ewe's Armpit...

Nigel

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: theleveller
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 01:01 PM

There are several pubs I know called The Case Is Altered. This comes from a trial during the reign of Elizabeth I…." while defending a gentleman charged with hearing Mass, he (Edmund Plowden) worked out that the service had been performed by a layman for the sole purpose of informing against those present, and exclaimed, "The case is altered; no priest, no Mass", and thus secured an acquittal. This incident has given rise to a common legal proverb: "The case is altered, quoth Plowden".

There's a piub in St Martin's Lane, London with two names: The Green Man and French Horn. And there's The Sun In Splendour in Notting Hill.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Cavia_P
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 02:22 PM

In Hull, the Polar Bear, and the Eagle (now Tap and Spile) on Spring Bank both allegedly refer to residents of the Zoological gardens. The original Botanic Gardens are now Hymers college grounds, but left their name in the Bottanic pub, Botanic Gardens (formerly Cemetery Gates) railway station and BG Locomotive depot.

There's another pub in Hull currently boarded up, named the Whittington and Cat. It's local nick name was the Dick and Pussy.

Regards,

Cavia_P

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Wincing Devil
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 02:49 PM

Two distinctly MURRICAN names:

Roadkill Cafe
Dew Drop Inn

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,strad
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 03:45 PM

I've drunk in The First In, Last Out on the outskirts of Bath,Somerset and enjoyed a pint in Ye Old Tippling Philosopher somewhere near the Monmouthshire end of the Severn Bridge.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Raggytash
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 04:23 PM

There's also a First In, Last Out in Whitby. Coming from the north or west it is indeed the first pub in the town and the last one out.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Bert
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 05:06 PM

There is the Bush, Blackbird and Thrush in East Peckham, Kent.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 30 Oct 07 - 06:06 PM

I live near the Ram Jam and always wondered, so thanks for that.

I'd also never heard the story about the Jackson Stops!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,NickR
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 07:29 AM

Wow, you do get some long threads on this site - 4 years is pretty good although I think I saw a longer one about the meaning of "Dirty Old Town" which went on for five years. I read all the posts on here and was going to mention the "Same Yet" in Simister and someone got there 11 posts before me - bugger! Well, the other two I can think of are the "Museum" in Moston (not the most scholarly of places) and "Rosins" which is near Darwen. It was called "Old Rosins" when it was just a pub and it has a wonderful address "Treacle Row, Pickup Bank, Hoddleston".
According to their website the name comes from a group of fiddlers who played there - and I quote:

"The Rosins was built in the late 17th to early 18th century, originally named the Duke of Wellington. Here live music was played in the evenings by a group of fiddlers and the resin used to oil their bows was known as 'rosin', hence the Duke of Wellington became the Old Rosins. To this day an original violin which has been lovingly restored, can be seen as a feature in our 'Rosins' restaurant"

They used to have a folk club there, were I once sang back in 1971. A colleague, who was a regular there, told me they always served late because, being out on the moors, they could see the police car headlights long before they got there. Then, a few weeks later he came into work a bit sheepish and told me they'd all got caught one night when the police turned up on horseback! And who says the police don't have a sense of humour? So let's drink to the memory of Rosin the Bow - or is that Beau, I was never sure.
Just one other thing, the White Horse in Prestwich is always known affectionately as the "Dirty Donkey"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Lorne's wife
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 09:27 AM

Anyone remember "The Monkey House" and "The Chocolate Poodle" somewhere in the New Forest circa 1980?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Splott Man
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 09:55 AM

There's a First In Last Out in Pembroke Dock too.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Snuffy
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 12:53 PM

And a Monkey House near Pershore, but it only sells cider.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Bonecruncher
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 09:09 PM

"The Chocolate Poodle", now defunct, was next to the railway bridge at Littleton Pannell, Wiltshire. It was next to the raiway station which served the Cheverells and the Lavingtons (local villages).
Colyn.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: eddie1
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 02:50 AM

Things may have changed now but back when my guitar was only a flat-backed mandolin, you would find folkies from foreign parts wandering up and down Forrest Road in Edinburgh looking for the famous "Sandy Bells". The pub was actually called "The Forrest Hill Bar" and there was no reference to "Sandy Bells" outside.
Sandy Bell was a one-time barman there but his name lingers on.

I loved the name of Ronnie Corbetts fictional local. The Rat and Handbag!

Eddie

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: synbyn
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 04:07 AM

The High & Dry in East Kent, near the old coalfields, now has a picture of a fishing boat on some shingle... it was called High & Dry after a shaft in the local colliery, which got its name for being so low and wet...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Charmaine
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 11:25 AM

Am looking for a pub name with reference to a "Newspaper Theme", can any one help?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 11:49 AM

When the local railway at Cowden was being built here many years ago the workers referred to one of the established pubs as "The Barking Donkey" just to confuse their site supervisors enquiring the whereabouts of the men.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 12:01 PM

Pub name with a newspaper theme?. If there aint a pub in Fleet Street or Canary Wharf called "The Reptile" then there blooming well ought to be!
What am I like?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: HuwG
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 12:30 PM

Look for the "Printer's Devil" (New Fetter Lane, WC1) higher up this thread.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 01:59 PM

Blimey - Thos one has run a lot longer than I thought!

There is definitely a Printers Arms in either Radcliffe or Whitefield near me. Sure there must be many others.

D.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 02:28 PM

The Black Boy :-)

I can't think one one by that name near me but there are 2 "The Black Boys".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Gulliver
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 02:40 PM

To add to the pubs named after horses there's the Bleeding Horse in Camden Street in Dublin, very old, standing as it does at a junction of two ancient routes and mentioned by several writers including Joyce in Ulysses. The battle of Rathmines was fought nearby in the 1640's and it's thought the horse in question may have wandered from the battlefield.

Or maybe a toper emerged from the premises to find his horse missing, and exclaimed to the landlord: "Where's me bleedin' horse?"

Don

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 12:38 AM

The Cat I' Th' Well, Wainstalls, near Halifax, where I occasionallly drank when rambling round the Calder valley, appears to be still in existence.

The Drunken Duck between Ambleside and Hawkshead was my first introduction to Lake District pubs. My friends Alan (Jessy Al to any Langdale Festerers out here) and Alison knew the landlord and we had a song and tune session with my guitar and Alan's accordion ("Jessy"). Not sure you could do that now, they like to think of themselves as a restaurant rather than a pub nowadays.

Fleetwood's Royal Oak has long been known as "Deadun's". There's a choice of stories as to how it got the name. Further along Lord Street, the "Prince Arthur" was known as "The Bug", while the Fleetwood Arms on Dock Street was known as the "First and Last" because of its position opposite the old dock gates.

Blackpool has The Number Four and The Number Three - closer in to the town centre there used to be Numbers Two and One, both long gone. They were originally coaching inns on the then main road into Blackpool from the Garstang/Lancaster direction.

Ross

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Les from Hull
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 10:15 AM

Newspaper themes - in Hull theres the

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Les from Hull
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 10:20 AM

oops! Editorial

And there's a session tonight in the Black Boy

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Les from Hull
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 10:22 AM

Bloody stupid frames! But if you click on 'pubs' in the page you get you might find them!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 07:23 AM

I seem to remember 'the Bear and Spectacles' but I'll be damned if I can remember where.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Captain Ginger
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 07:49 AM

The old Daily Mirror pub was officially the White Hart, but everyone called it The Stab, as in the stab in the back and there's also the Cartoonist round behind the old Express building in Fleet Street.
I can't think of any with names that are particularly newspaperish however, though there are plenty of pubs around Fleet Street with long and inglorious associations, including The King and Keys (Telegraph), The Punch (Standard), The Harrow (Mail) and the Tipperary (News of the World).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Mr Red
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 08:02 AM

do bears wear spectacles in the woods? sound a load of crap to me.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,bill S from Perth
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 09:47 AM

Enjoyed reading again, but forgotten I'd already contributed!
There is always the famous honeymooners pub, Cock Inn, Welwyn, Herts (how do you get there? go through Maidenhead and you'll find yourself in Staines)
There used to be two pubs in New Hey (check), both called the Bird in Hand, both Sam Smiths known locally as Top Bird and Bottom Bird
In case you are worried about ale in Oz we have a couple of dozen pub-breweries in easy reach and we can buy Youngs Bitter for less than 30 bob a metric pint. Pub names tend to be the predictable gimmicky although Little Creatures would be unusual, now their ale is on sale in the UK.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: davyr
Date: 08 Apr 08 - 10:14 AM

"we can buy Youngs Bitter for less than 30 bob a metric pint"

Best of luck to you - the stuff was ruined by the marketing men forcing a recipe change even before the death of John Young and the sell-off of the Ram Brewery. The bottled stuff is still very drinkable, though...

I don't think anyone ever answered the question at the start of this thread about the pub called the "Bleeding Wolf" at Scholar Green (which is actually in Cheshire, not Staffordshire, despite its ST postcode).

It's just up the road from me, so I can tell you that it got its name from a (probably apocryphal) story about King John being saved from a wounded wolf when he was hunting in the area. Usual stuff about his saviour (an honest woodman) being rewarded with a grant of land, on which the pub was (eventually) built.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,dotty dill
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 07:14 AM

Hi all, I wonder if anyone out there has ever encountered a pub called 'The Fool and Child'. I have a print of an 1646 engraving of Wakefield, Yorks. which has beneath it the inscription 'Sold at he Fool and Child' which I would presume would be a tavern of that time. I can find no reference to a pub of this name anywhere. Any ideas?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 07:43 AM

Is there really a Fool and Bladder? Please say there is & that it hosts a fine monthly singaround & tell me how to get there!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 09:54 AM

I drove past one this morning called ' Demolition by Kirkpatrick and Son '

eric

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Aeola
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:53 PM

On the way back from Saddleworth I passed a pub called The Smut, got to be something to do with coalmining?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Big Tim
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 11:37 AM

An interesting one in Glasgow is called The Redan, 'the Russians they flailed us at the Redan' in the song 'Kerry Recruit', set in Crimean War.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Sue Allan
Date: 22 Jul 08 - 11:58 AM

Two late lamented Cumbrian pubs with odd names: The Heilk Moon (heilk pronounced helk)... which had the sign of a half moon, and the White Quey (quey pronounced why) which is some sort of cow, apparently. Both gone now, sadly.
And the Throstles Nest in my native Wigton is named after the town;s nickname of Throstles Nest (why? no one really knows except that it nestles in a hollow)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,donc
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 02:59 AM

The Hark to Mopsey in Normanton mentioned previously.
I was told by my Mother that the pub took it's name after the building caught fire and the occupants were woken and saved by the barking of the pub dog named Mopsey. Hence the name Hark to Mopsey.
Not sure if it's true but a lovely story.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 03:25 AM

Insane Beard:
It would appear that The Fool & Bladder is close to our own Mudcat Tavern somewhere in cyberland!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Chris
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 10:40 AM

Hi Folks,

I'm lookinf for the origin of the pub nam The Eagle. Can anyone help

Ta

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 10:48 AM

Sometimes it's just the shorted form of the Eagle and Child which was the family crest of the Earls of Derby. They owned a lot of land in East London so there's a few pubs there called the Eagle and Child.

The Eagle was also the crest of Truman's Brewery (defunct) so many pubs formwerly owned by Truman's will be called The Eagle.

I'm sure there's many other reasons for it being used as a pub name.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 10:54 AM

Seen the King's Head and the Baker's Arms... still looking for the Butcher's Finger.

Oh last night's chipolatta?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 10:55 AM

Guest Chris,
            I am led to believe, by virtue of a t.v. progrwmme concerned with change and parlour state of certain pub signs, that way back in our history a rule/law /ordnace was introduced that required all inns and taverns be identified by a suitable sign in order that the people of that time who could not read were still capable recognising the venue. It is probably still on the statute books. The above being the case, it is probable there were many, many houses designated "The Eagle" and a sign erected at the choice of the house owner or tenant.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 09 - 06:26 PM

The Singing Chocker is called so, because before it opened people voted for a name for the new pub, and The Singing Chocker was the most popular. It is named after my uncle, Bill Walstow, now about 98 years old and still going, he was obviously a chocker in the mines and you guessed it he was always singing, hence the singing chocker. Honestly this is no bull, ask any Walstow in Castleford.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: scowie
Date: 09 Aug 09 - 03:47 AM

Not had a mention yet is the unique "The House Without a Name" at Bradshaw near Bolton.My father who died ten years ago remembers the "Bradshaw Chorus" (He Advance-ed me a shilling, a shilling from the Crown) being sung there as a boy.I have seen the song mentioned as thus in old publications.
In reply to Sue Allens query a "Wye" calf(or Cauve in the Lancashire vernacular)was one of the female variety, and so a replacement,more welcome than a bull calf which had to be sold and was of little value.
As for by-names the long gone Scotch Vaults in Bolton, were known as "The Deep End" there was a shallow end for the more trivial crimes!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 09 Aug 09 - 09:56 AM

We were drinking in the 'Twice Brewed' pub, in the village of 'Once Brewed', just off Hadrian's Wall last week. Never did find out the origins of either name.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Paul Burke
Date: 09 Aug 09 - 02:54 PM

Come on then Guest, bait taken, what's a chocker?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 09 Aug 09 - 06:40 PM

For a few years there was a pub on Exmouth called the ic on nn, till at last the sign maker was called to replace the missing letters and return the Bicton Inn to its former Glory.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Venango
Date: 10 Aug 09 - 01:07 AM

A tavern and restaruant called The Yellow Dog Lantern ni Oil City, Pennsylvania. It closed down last year or so. Bad management. It refers to a type of latern invented to burn crude oil in the early oil fields of northwestern Pennsylvania.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Aeola
Date: 10 Aug 09 - 03:53 PM

One for 'Mandaleer' The Scotch Piper in Lydiate, Merseyside dates back to @1200AD

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 07:41 PM

William (billy) Walstow who is my Great grandad died today (14/03/2010) at around 9am. RIP

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Sassyschoolmarm
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 06:41 AM

There's 'The Penny-Come-Quick' in Plymouth, England near the train station that always makes me cackle. Methinks I have a dirty mind ;-).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 11 - 11:22 AM

Second West Pub in Bradford.

I think it has something to do with the second West Yorkshire battalion of the bradford pals who fought in WW1.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: alex s
Date: 15 May 11 - 01:28 PM

In Paris there's Le Lapin Agile (The Agile Monkey), a corruption of Le Lapin a Gilles (Giles' Monkey) after the original owner, who, of course, had a pet monkey.
Nearer to home, in North Yorks you'll find The Busby Stoop.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Frug
Date: 15 May 11 - 03:36 PM

Isn't lapin rabbit?? I think monkey is singe.

Frank

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Anne Lister
Date: 15 May 11 - 04:30 PM

Someone some threads back (some years back!) mentioned the Virgins and Castle and said it was in Leamington - no, it's in Kenilworth and still there. It's a reference to the visit of Elizabeth 1 to Kenilworth castle. The folk club that met there for some time had some bumper stickers printed saying "Up the Virgins" which I had proudly displayed on my guitar case until I moved to London and had some very odd looks as a result.

My great grandparents ran a pub called The Case is Altered in Banbury. My Dad's understanding of the name is that it was near the law courts ... not sure if this is at all accurate!

Some that have had me puzzled for a while are the pub in Soho where I used to meet friends regularly which was called the Sun and Thirteen Cantons ... and the pub down the road from us now called the Hog and Hosper.

There's a nice story about another nearby pub, called the Waun-y-Claer. In the village of Llanover lived Lady Augusta Waddington, wife to Benjamin Waddington (who gave his name to Big Ben). She wanted to make the village like a "real" Welsh village and so made all the local pubs teetotal, and insisted on having teetotal employees. She became very angry with a gardener, whose bike she saw propped up on the wall outside the Waun-y-Claer (which is outside the village). His response the following night was to leave his bike propped up under her bedroom window ...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 11 - 05:28 PM

The Arden Inn in Accrington

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: SRD
Date: 15 May 11 - 05:49 PM

The Fruiterers Arms in Crockenhill, Kent was known as 'The Mudhole'.
The Seymour Arms in Witham Friary, Somerset (and elsewhere) are known as 'The Sleeveless Vest'.
The Sans Pareil in Frindsbury, Kent was referred to as the 'Sands Parallel' by several of the local residents.
I once got caught in a Mondegreen when a friend mentioned that he'd been down at the Groom and Widgeon at Bough Beech, he'd actually been recovering a Grumann Widgeon which had sunk in the reservoir there.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mandomad
Date: 15 May 11 - 07:00 PM

The Murderers (pub in Norwich)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Max Johnson
Date: 16 May 11 - 07:32 AM

During the '80s I used to drink in the old 'Boot and Flogger' in Southwark, which bizarrely used to close at 8:00. Quiet, comfortable, big leather armchairs, courteous and knowledgeable staff. Bliss.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,PatrickH
Date: 16 May 11 - 12:55 PM

I always wondered if the Muscular Arms was apocryphal.
I remember there was a pub on the prom at Seacombe on the Wirral called the Five Bars Rest. Frequented by musicians no doubt.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 May 11 - 02:12 PM

It's nice to see old threads resurrected :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 16 May 11 - 03:32 PM

I saw a pub in Norwich the other day called the Nelson Arms. It occured to me it should be the Nelson Arm...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: mandomad
Date: 16 May 11 - 04:18 PM

The Slubbers arms in Huddersfield Venue of a good music session every month


                  mandomad

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 16 May 11 - 04:56 PM

Harking back to a post I made in this thread in Jan 03. I went by the Cow & Snuffers in Cardiff the other day and found itis up for auction. A sad sight.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Max Johnson
Date: 26 Aug 11 - 10:28 AM

I had lunch in the 'Hark To Bounty' in Slaidburn yesterday. An excellent pint and a decent lunch in what must be one of the loveliest places in England.

Less interesting, the pub got it's name when the local squire and his chums, who had parked the rest of the Hunt outside the pub, heard the melodious voice of one foxhound above all others. "Hark to Bounty!", the squire exclaimed, that being, presumably, the name of the dog.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,bigal
Date: 18 Oct 11 - 03:39 PM

One of my favorite pubs in newcastle is the Crown Posada near the quayside at the bottom of grey street, cant remember the story behind its name though, if you went in and asked for a lager the landlord would say "you dont want that crap" and would pour you a pint of real ale, also the hark to bounty in slaidburn was originally called the dog but the locals wanted a more original name,

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 12:40 PM

The late fiddler and singer Willie Beaton [ RIP ] once told me if he ever won the pools [ this was 20 years before the lottery ] he was going to by a pub and call it "The Fox And Gyneacologist". I would have loved to have seen his sign..............or maybe not !

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Don Wise
Date: 20 Oct 11 - 06:38 AM

I've written songs about "The Ram-Jam Inn" and "The Five Alls." That was a long time ago........'The Five Alls' that inspired me is/was in Chepstow.(I fight for all,I plead for all,I pray for all,I rule all,I pay for all)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Banjo-Flower
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 06:13 AM

"if you went in and asked for a lager the landlord would say "you dont want that crap" and would pour you a pint of real ale"

which I would leave untouched and unpaid for and leave telling the landlord I don't want what he cannot otherwise get rid of

Gerry

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Zalby57
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 07:47 AM

ny personal favourite can be found in County Carlow in Ireland..a pub with a long history..."The Fighting Cocks"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,guest porkypig
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 05:51 PM

There used to be a pub in Burnley called HELP ME MAKE IT THROUGH THE WORLD

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 06:26 PM

Wow, it's still here :-)

I have told my youngest grandson, now 4, that we are going to buy a pub and call it 'The Queen's Bum'. We both think it is hilarious...

:D tG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 06:31 PM

I recall from way back a pub around Hanger Lane/Western Avenue called The Band At Rest, where some sf-oriented friends used to meet periodically,

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 06:37 PM

Reminded by DtG's joke name of a terrible joke from my 70-odd years ago schooldays, about a pub called The Queen's Legs, and one of a queue waiting outside telling a curious passer-by, "We're waiting for The Queen's Legs to open so we can have a drink."

Don't let anyone kid you that the old ones were the best.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Ebor Fiddler
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 08:28 PM

Have we had the Bull in Spectacles in Blithbury, Staffs?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 08:51 PM

I think there used to be a pub in Edinburgh was called "The Ferret & Trousers".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Sir Roger de Beverley
Date: 31 Oct 15 - 07:40 AM

This week they have just finished demolishing a pub in Harrogate called the Little Wonder - named after a racehorse. There is also a racehorse named pub in York called Beeswing (nothing to do with Richard Thompson).

R

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Thompson
Date: 31 Oct 15 - 07:38 PM

There was a pub beside Emmet Bridge in Harold's Cross, Dublin, called The Old Grinding Young. My mother knew it as a young girl in the 1920s, and said it then had a swinging inn sign, with paint almost an inch thick from eternal repainting, showing an old man in 18th-century dress being fed into a mincer and coming out the other side as a young man (presumably from the revivifying effects of the beer).

The house on the site looks ancient; it's attached to another pub which has recently closed. I live in fear that they'll be knocked down and an apartment block built there. My suspicion is that this house is far, far older than the 18th century.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Nov 15 - 07:32 AM

The Band at Rest which I mentioned above had, I recall, a fine eastward view clear across to St Paul's thru the windows of its upstairs meeting-room.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 01 Nov 15 - 06:33 PM

Has nobody mentioned (read the whole thread) "The Nobody Inn" at Doddiscombsleigh in Devon? We used to go there regularly when we lived in Devon many 40-odd years ago. Seems it still exists, as it has a website.
Nearer home now, Boozer in 2003 mentioned "The Black Bitch" in Linlithgow: not just part of the town's coat of arms but a local legend, which is portrayed on the walls of the lounge bar. (And a very non-PC friend calls it "The Winnie Mandela").
And where I live, in Balerno, SW Edinburgh, one of the local pubs is known as "The Honky" (real name "Malleny Arms"). Again the reason, in local history is shoen in a sign outside the pub. It dates from WW2 when US servicemen were stationed at Kirknewton airfield a few miles down the road, and christened it "The Honky-tonk".
The other pub, The Grey Horse, is known to many as "Brow's" after the landlady who retired possibly as much as 20 years ago.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Bill S in Adelaide
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 12:51 AM

Couldn't help it, looked again. But it seems like a good place to ask about the Trigger Pond in Bucknell as the locals don't seem to know for certain.
Nearest back street boozer here is the Lord Exmouth known to one and all as the Monkey House for reasons that are obvious when you go inside. Also nearby is the Checkside Tavern which is named after a kick from a narrow angle in Ozzie rules footy.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 03:55 AM

Going through Rochdale I saw a pub called "the Ladyhouse" and wondered what it was before it was a pub. But reality is that there is a road called Ladyhouse Lane, which still begs the same question. map the roads have been modernised but I would guess the pub was in that lane.

In Beverley the pub in the centre was always known as the "Push" because it had a swing door with the words "Push" in big letters. I believe it has reverted to "the Punch" now.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 05:17 AM

Looking back to my time in Huddersfield there was Wills O' Nats, Nont Sarahs and the Golcar Lily. There was also the Warren House, now closed. Closer to where I live now we have the Cod and Lobster in Staithes.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 11:20 AM

Thinking back to my student days at The London Hospital in Whitechapel, The pub most used by students (other than the students' union bars) was The Good Samaritan: an appropriate enough name for a pub sandwiched between various hospital and medical college buildings.
After you graduated, it was more likely you would go to "The Grave Maurice" - just over the road near Whitechapel tube station. There was a code for this, when speaking in front of patients - "See you in the chapel later" - so the patients assumed their junior doctors were all religious....?
"The Grave Maurice" and "The Blind Beggar" were both frequented by the Kray brothers, and indeed the murder of Cornell by Ronnie Kray took place during my time at medical school. Some info about these 2 pubs and the goings on there in this article:
Pubs with a secret history

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Faye
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 03:18 PM

There's "Middle Earth" in Nottingham, "Eagle and Child", "Angel and Greyhound" and "Far from the Madding Crowd" in Oxford, "The Drunken Duck" in Ambleside... There are many unusual ones!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 05:11 PM

"The Black Bitch" in Linlithgow: not just part of the town's coat of arms but a local legend, which is portrayed on the walls of the lounge bar. (And a very non-PC friend calls it "The Winnie Mandela").
This was the home of Llinlithgow folk club which was run by Nora Devine, a Folk club I played many times.
Nora Devine, was a great organiser, who got some fine artists to play in her club. R.I.P.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 05:22 PM

Cambridge's The Baron Of Beef is a name I have not come across elsewhere.

Hampstead Heath, near where I grew up, has its famous trio of The Old Bull & Bush [famous eponym of a music hall song], The Spaniards Inn, and Jack Straw's Castle.

And don't forget The Elephant and Castle, which gave its name to a London District —— I have heard it said that the name was a corruption of The Infanta Of Castile; but I have always thought that it must be at least infuenced by the way that the rook of a fine chess set is often modelled as an elephant carrying the castle on its back as a sort of howdah -- sometimes filled with soldiers.


≈M≈

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Thompson
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 06:46 PM

There's a pub near Athy called The Bleeding Horse, built by the roadside where a man's gunshot horse finally collapsed under him as he fled an English massacre of 400 people invited to a peace conference in 1577. Or there was; I think this old pub may have closed during the recession. Maybe it'll be open again.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Nov 15 - 11:48 AM

Rose and Lion Bromyard is a grand pub for performing outside at festival time.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 03 Nov 15 - 12:03 PM

GSS: yes, Nora Devine is sadly missed: she died in 1999. No longer a folk CLUB as such, but still a thriving Folk Festival Association, with an annual festival and other events throughout the year. Ian McCalman of The McCalmans recalled that Nora gave him their first booking, and Aly Bain was also an early player. They also used The Footballers' and Cricketers' Arms, which is now one of our monthly session venues.
And Nora's name lives on as we run an outdoor stage every year at the Festival, which is "The Nora Devine Stage".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Nov 15 - 04:38 AM

Rose and Lion Bromyard
a strange combination which may have evolved from two pubs. I always remember a lass climbing in through the window at the Festival because of the crowds.

And while we are on the subject of two pubs: My uncle hailed from Knighton where they had a pub called the Lion and and two doors away a pub called the Lamb. His relative who lived in the house in between acquired the nickname "Hugh the Peacemaker" because he lay betwixt the Lion & the Lamb!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Nov 15 - 06:02 AM

I spent some WWii time in Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire, staying in The Old George [cafe not pub] in the High Street, near the neighbouring signs of The Cock & The Bull; supposed by local folklore [tho disputed* like so many origin-claims] to be the eponyms of the idiomatic name for a tall tale, "Cock-&-Bull-Story", as by the time a story had travelled out of one and into the other it had got a bit garbled.

≈M≈

*See section in Wikipedia article on 'Coaching Inns'

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 04 Nov 15 - 06:15 AM

Various posts have mentioned a "Hark To" insert name of Dog. In the Kirkstall area of Leeds there is a Hark TO Rover who legend has it was a dog at the nearby priory. He supposedly woke the monks when the priory was on fire. There is another tale which can be found at:


Hark To Rover

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: severed-head
Date: 04 Nov 15 - 11:00 AM

There is a pub called The Wonder in Enfield, Middlesex which hosts a monthly singaround. Also the United Brethren pub in Chelmsford, which hosts trad music sessions and occasional singing.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 11:25 AM

I lived near the 'Cabbage Patch' near Twickenham station for a while- nobody could remember when there were gardens there!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 11:44 AM

Not far from here, there’s a pub called the “White Lion”. Not a particularly unusual name but the sign has always been a picture of a zebra.

I also know a pub called “The Polygon” which has a sign showing an empty birdcage with the door open!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 01:02 PM

Martha Grimes, when she started writing and publishing
her series of police-detective murder mysteries featuring
the character of Richard Jury,
always named each mystery after a pub or club of some kind.
Several pubs named in this thread
have become titles of Richard Jury mystery books,
such as The LaMorna Wink.

A more recent installment, however, is titled
'The Knowledge' and it refers to the arcane mysteries
known to taxicab drivers in Greater London --
but I really don't know that there actually exists
a pub called 'The Knowledge.'

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 01:36 PM

Sean oggs.
irish name sean og? which would mean, when translated young Sean

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Raggytash
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 04:30 PM

There is a village in Cornwall called Lamorna and there is a pub there named "The Wink".

Not fiction but fact.

As an aside people sing a song which I know as Pomona which some people claim to be from Cornwall.

Abject nonsense I have to say, Lamorna is not even a one horse town, it certainly doesn't have an Albert Square for one and it would take an age to get a taxi to get there from any surrounding town

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Senoufou
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 05:16 PM

In Horsham St Faiths, Norfolk UK there's a pub called the Black Swan.
But most of the locals there call it the Datty Duck. (We used to live in that village)
The Murderers pub in Norwich (dates back to the 17th Century) is so-called because one of the landlords murdered his wife there in the 19th Century. Before that the pub was known as The Gardeners.
The Adam and Eve in Norwich was founded in 1249, and is haunted. There's a bar down in the basement and lots of people have seen/felt the ghosts down there.
Then there's the Pig and Whistle. Medieval one, and piggen is an Anglo-Saxon word for a drinking vessel. Whistle was once 'wassail'.
Finally, naughty Jamie Oliver, a TV chef, set off in a travelling pub-on-wheels for a programme, and he called his pub the Cock In Cider. Tut tut!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 06:43 PM

Raggy tash, Albert Square was supposed to have been in Penzance. A horse drawn cab would have taken you 'Way down to Lamorna'

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Murpholly
Date: 03 Jul 20 - 06:48 PM

Halifax has The Running Man. They used to send men to the guillotine which was at the bottom of a hill. If the man could run to the pub without being caught he was reprieved.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 04:10 AM

Makes a lot more sense with Pomona gardens and Albert Square in Manchester, Tug. See https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/nostalgia/fascinating-history-behind-pomona-greater-13340688

Nice to see a thread I started all that time back resurrected.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 04:56 AM

I used to play music in a lovely old pub called the 'Compasses' at Crundale, near Canterbury. It meant nothing until I was shown the old pub sign, for the 'God Encompasses'.
I later lived & worked at Thames TV in Euston & the local pub was the 'Goat and Compasses' which I presume had a similar origin?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 05:20 AM

There is a Moody Cow just outside Bradford.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 05:48 AM

I used to pass that sometimes, Dave.

Have I mentioned the Railway and Naturalist in Prestwich?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 06:33 AM

There is a pub in Sevenoaks, which, for over a hundred or more years is called "The Black Boys". There is a plaque on the wall detailing the history of this pub and how it`s name may have originated. We are informed the brewery owners of the pub are to change the name to "The Restoration" for fear of offending some people.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 06:41 AM

Don't let The Morris Ring know FFS


Dave H

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 06:56 AM

Hi John- I also used to play music at an old miners' Black Boy, in Low Moorsley, Co Durham. The sign was of a classic black (forgive me) sambo & I often wondered why.
I just looked it up on Google Earth- it's still called that, but the old sign is nowhere to be seen....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 08:18 AM

There was a "Black Boy" on Liverpool Road in Patricroft too. Now a "Best One" convenience store.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Jos
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 08:37 AM

There are Black Boy Inns and Black Boy pubs all over England, many thought to be named after Charles II who was nicknamed 'the black boy' because of his dark hair. Nothing to do with slavery.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Roger
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 10:06 AM

Going back to a previous post about Wigton in Cumbria. There is a pub called the Blackamoor, known locally as the Blackie.
Also, the Green Bank on the A6 south of Carlisle has reopened after being shut for a few years. Its now called the Nosey Cow!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 11:01 AM

no it's just a perceived' connection with unacceptable attitudes & we have to live with it, as a lot of people are offended by the connotations, right or wrong.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Raggytash
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 12:49 PM

Tug the Cox, This is one of my bug-bears. The song was written about Pomona Docks in Manchester. Manchester has an Albert Square till today. I know I used to live there. Penzance does not have, and has never had an Albert Square. Some try to claim it for Cornwall, bugger off I say, write your own songs!!


Pomona Docks, Manchester

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 01:50 PM

I don't think it was Pomona Docks, Raggy. I think it was the Royal Pomona Palace and botanical gardens which became the Pomona Docks later. Apart from that, spot on. The palace and gardens had their heyday in the late 19th / early 20th century when the song was written. It was very popular in Manchester around then but was not really known as Lamora until the 1960s when the Yetties did their version.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 01:53 PM

...and of course the other clue to it being Manchester was the evening being wet (wet wet) :-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 04:54 PM

LTS here - Ian Bainbridge - the Goat and Compasses was my 'local' when I worked in Euston Tower. Had many a happy lunchtime in there, but the beer was awful.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Anne Lister
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 05:26 PM

My Dad's favourite discussion was how names of pubs were distorted. So the Goat and Compasses, as mentioned above, from God Encompasses Us, and he reckoned that the Elephant and Castle was from "Eleanor Infanta of Castile". Which is possible, but it's also true that the Elephant and Castle sign was a guild sign. Was that because they had misheard "Eleanor Infanta ..." - or was it a reference to the merchant cargoes?
There are books on this stuff, of course.
The pubs in my old stomping ground of Wapping were always fun. The Town of Ramsgate, named after a ship, as was the Prospect of Whitby. Around here they're mostly from the coats of arms of the landowning families, like the Bear for the Nevills.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Jos
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 05:49 PM

Having grown up in the country I was used to pubs called The Jolly Farmer, so I was amused to find that in London there are pubs called The Jolly Gardener. It makes sense tough - there are far more gardens than farms in London.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,jim not ian bainbridge
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 05:43 AM

Manitas- the tower was where I worked- Thames TV- now LBC I believe?- ddn't go in the Goat & Compasses much but London beer was pretty awful generally-
there were good cafes round there & a wonderful Army surplus shop nearby- Laurence ?....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 08:08 AM

Haven't read the whole thread, but in the dockside area of Glasgow there was a pub called "The Doctor's"....always tickled my fancy.
"right hen am'm jist away doon tae the doctor's".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 08:13 AM

There was a pub in Leigh in a similar vein - The Office.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 08:21 AM

There used to be one in Bradford too Dave.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 09:24 AM

I thought I posted here about the mystery author, Martha Grimes [great name for murder mystery author, that] whose titles were all pub names. I recall Help the poor struggler, the old fox deceiv'd, the anodyne necklace...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 09:27 AM

The real Manitas here. The Army surplus shop was Laurence Corner and was unusual in that it had stuff like dress uniforms and chef's whites (a boon to morris dancers).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 12:00 PM

I `ad that John from Kemsing in my cab the other day. `e `ad come up to the Smoke to see `ow many odd pub names still existed on the north bank of the Thames between Westminster and London Bridge. `e`s writing a book or something.
I said, "Morning Jay. I see you `ve been on that MudCat again with news about the "Black Boys" pub in Sevenoaks. Bloody P.C. shame".
`e said, "Well, yeah. That`s what the papers said. Jim, you and your band `ave been at it for donkey`s years. `ave you come across any odd pub names?"
I said , "Yeah, a couple stick in my mind. There was "The `oy and `elmet" near Canvey in Essex, some thing to do with a boat and an `at and "The Crypt" near Notting `ill. That was licenced and nothing to do with the church."
e` said , "They`ve never changed their names, `ave they?"
I said , "I don`t think so but I`m told there is another one in Sevenoaks. So as to not offend people. It`s "The White `art", top of River `ill. They`re gonna call it "The Dear Deer". Very apt at their prices!!!"



Whaddam I Like???

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 02:03 PM

If anyone wants more on the Pomona\Lamorna discussion there is an earlier thread

thread.cfm?threadid=4387

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 06:24 AM

There was an old pub near the heavily bombed market place in South Shields.

It was called the 'Norfolk & Suffolk' and survived the war, but was demolished later- I remember it around 1960 - it was known by the locals as the 'Two F....s' although that never appeared on the pub sign.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 02:10 PM

The ‘Black Boy’ in Sevenoaks will always be just that to me. Used to go there on Saturday lunchtimes with the much-missed singer-songwriter Monty Parkin (whom Jim Knowledge and indeed John from Kemsing will doubtless remember) in search of bookings for us to play at country-house parties that evening.

The boy in question was apparently a little pageboy at the nearby Knole House.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Odd pub names
From: DonMeixner
Date: 07 Jul 20 - 08:18 AM

Not far from me is Crabbie Kirk's and further down the road is The Squat and Gobble.

Don