Lost Pubs M-Z

Introduction
What follows is a selection of the ‘Lost Pubs of Hastings and St Leonards’. It supersedes the appendix on ‘Lost Pubs’ in the book ‘The Pubs of Hastings and St Leonards. 1800–2000’ published in 2009.

Manor, St Mary’s Road.
Opened in 1878. By the turn of the century an assembly rooms and Shades was situated at the rear of the pub. Closed in 2009.

Marina Inn, Caves Road, 1852–1996.
This seems quite a small building so it is surprising to learn that in 1864 dances were held in the Marina Parlour. In 1885 a Coroner’s Inquest was held here into the death of a ten year old boy who had ‘suffocated accidentally on a piece of meat fixed in his windpipe,’ and in the 1888 Directory it is referred to as the West Marina Inn.
Before the First World War the chief constable tried to get the Marina closed down because ‘trade was not being conducted to his satisfaction,’ although he didn’t elaborate.
In 1911 the landlady, Nelly Carey, became bankrupt. She blamed it all on a fall off in trade and bad beer from the brewers. However, two years later a new landlord claimed he had customers further afield in West Hill and did a good ‘bottle and jug’ trade on ‘the frontline’. West Hill is located on the cliff top and the customers must have used Sussex Steps, which ran down the cliff face into Sussex Street. These steps are now closed due to cliff falls.
The Marina Inn ran a Slate Club as well as a Tontine Club. In 1913 it sold 171 barrels of beer which, added to the sales of the Oddfellows down the road, was a not inconsiderable amount of beer for a street of only 100 people! We don’t know the Fountain’s sales but we suspect the chief constable couldn’t understand where it all went and was suspicious!
One customer at this time, was a chimney sweep who drank in the tap in his work clothes. When asked by another customer if his ‘wife dusted him down when he got home’, he replied: ‘Come outside and I’ll dust you down.’
Apart from the chief constable, another enemy was the temperance lobby. Landlady Ada Bell was secretary of the Women’s Auxiliary League (the women’s section of the License Victuallers Association) in the 1920s, an organisation set up to oppose the ‘pussyfoots, killjoys and fanatics’ of the temperance lobby. She was apparently an excellent speaker.
In 1939 just before the outbreak of war, excessive rain led to a collapse of the cliffs, and boulders and earth crashed down against the pub in a landslide. ‘We used to have eight to ten cars outside at weekends. Now you cannot find one. The ladies are nervous of coming,’ said the landlord. But Hastings’s Corporation denied any responsibility saying it didn’t own the cliffs.
In 1950 the pub sign showing a ‘gent’ in a bowler hat and a mermaid sitting back to back on a bench on the Marina, was included in the Whitbread miniature inn sign series.
Cliff falls remained a serious problem particularly in the 1970s and for insurance reasons the pub was forced to close in the 1990s.

Market Tap. George Street.
This beer house was located at the Market in George Street and was frequented by fish buyers in the 1860s. Jane Piper was licensee in 1862 and an application for a full licence was refused in 1869. In 1870 the landlord, William Piper, was summonsed under the licensing laws and appeared before the bench, drunk.
Clerk: ‘Do you keep the Market Tap?’
Piper: ‘Yes I do, that don’t keep me.’
Clerk: ‘Do you understand what I say?’
Piper: ‘Well I baint no scholar.’
Clerk: ‘Are you sober?’
Piper: ‘Well I don’t know whether I’m sober.’
Clerk: ‘Fined 5s.’
Piper: ‘I should like to pay and get out of this mess. I’ve got a lot of money that’s no good to me.’
Piper threw down the 5s. ‘That’s for them gentlemen to get a glass of grog with.’
Jane Piper was listed as the licensee of another beer house in Commercial Road in 1866. However, due to the vagaries of street names and numbering, both licensed premises might have been the same premises at different dates.

Market Tavern, 14 East Parade.
Of the twenty households on East Parade, five were licensed premises from 1871 until 1876. They were the Foresters, the Cutter, the Market Tavern, the Lugger and the Rising Sun. Only the Cutter remains.
The Market Tavern was sandwiched between the Cutter and the Lugger. It is now the Ocean Fish and Chip shop. William James applied for a licence in 1868/9 but was refused.
By 1894 the landlord was Harry Bell and the pub was known as The Market Tavern and Oyster Saloon.

Mason’s Arms, High Street.
In 1875 during a fracas, a fisherman drinking in the bar was struck on the head by a quart pot. There was no gaslight only candles so he was unsure if the pot was aimed at him or not.
In 1878 the magistrates described the pub as a ‘tramps lodging house next door to the Roebuck,’ and said the landlord was often absent at sea for months at a time.

Merry Christmas, 59 All Saints Street.

Back in Victorian times the Old Town was one of the poorer areas of Hastings with a large number of pubs and beer houses. The latter were usually cheap lodging houses used by tramping tradesmen, fishermen, hawkers, itinerants and others including a lot of women.
These lodging houses usually had a bar attached, sometimes two. Until 1869 anyone who paid rates could get a licence to sell beer for two guineas without applying to the local magistrates.
A lot of these beer/lodging houses didn’t have a ‘pub’ name and were simply known by the landlords/ladies name. The Merry Christmas was one beer house with a name located in All Saints Street in the 1840s and 50s. The landlord was Edward Paris.
In a local document called: ‘Returns under the Common Lodging Houses Act 1851,’ the Merry Christmas is mentioned with twelve double beds to let and all lodgers sleeping two to a bed.
In 1848 a Carpenter call Thomas Wright, 29, was charged with stealing a blanket from the Merry Christmas. Eliza Paris, wife of the landlord was a key witness. The prisoner was found guilty and given seven months in the Lewes House of Correction including 14 days solitary.
The document was written in 1852 so we know that the Merry Christmas existed for at least 4 years from 1848. The Public Health Act of 1848 required all towns to carry out a survey of drains and sewers because of concerns about cholera and typhus. The water was of poor quality as the Bourne stream was filthy, which was probably why the Merry Christmas brewed its own beer.
Another document relating to the Public Health Act of 1848 called ‘The Sanitary Battle of Hastings’, shows that by the 1840s Old Town was a festering slum where the residents suffered awful conditions. Overflowing cesspools were being discharged onto the beach and only a third of houses had running water. But even this was contaminated by sewerage. Drainage was poor and many hundreds lived in overcrowded insanitary housing without ‘privies’, drainage or water. In 1849 there were at least 65 deaths from cholera in Old Town and many more deaths were unregistered. Some other parts of the town were equally as bad.
The town council started to make the connection between this insanitary environment and bad health. The Council saw this as very bad news for tourism. It was not what they wanted visitors to read about.
As for as the Merry Christmas and other lodging houses, a major concern must have been drinking water. Those who sold beer were in a much better position than those who didn’t. Beer was a safer and healthier drink and this is a major reason why there were so many beer houses and pubs in the Old Town at this time.
The 1851 Census confirms the location of the Merry Christmas at 59 All Saints Street. It lists a total of 16 people in residence including four members of the Paris family:-
Edward Paris, 39, Licensee and Bricklayer
Robert Paris, 10, Son
Clare Paris, 6 Daughter.
Thomas Paris, 4 Son.
Eliza Paris, Wife, not listed.
The other twelve people (6 couples) are all recorded as lodgers who had tramped from various parts of the country: Hampshire, Kent, Wales, Scotland and Loughton.
The Merry Christmas is not listed in the 1861 Census. There seems to have been a change of use but the copy is blurred.

Mitre, High Street.
In 1894 the landlord was summonsed for encouraging gambling. He lent a hawker money ‘to provide for his children, to pay his rates and for a Christmas dinner’, but admitted under questioning that several amounts lent were for playing ‘nap’ in the bar.
In 1899 the Mitre Social and Musical Club held a ladies night. Oddly, a Mr Bosher was the Master of Ceremonies, Mr A. Turner was the pianist. Mrs Claire Daniels sang Flight of Ages (encore), Mr A. Turner sang A Tar of the Queen’s, Mrs Edwards sang While all the World is Sleeping and Mr Vivian Fisher ‘convulsed the company’ with the popular song The Curate.
The Mitre closed in 1930 when its licence was transferred to the Swan opposite. Some time later it regained its license as the Mitre Restaurant. It is now Porters Wine Bar.

New Found Out, Breeds Yard.
One of four beer houses attached to the Breeds brewery in the Bourne. The New Found Out was actually in the yard itself. Breeds Brewery probably owned the site from about 1800. In 1867 and again in 1871 customers were fined 10s each for out of hours drinking on a Sunday. In the same year licensee Simeon Shaw, was cautioned by the magistrates for being drunk in public - outside his pub, not in it. It closed in 1874.

New Inn, Mercatoria.
An early beer house in Lavatoria Square (now part of North Street) St Leonards. In 1869 its licence was revoked because the landlord, Stephen Fisher, had ‘allowed boys to gamble on the premises’.

New Moon, 45–46 All Saint’s Street.
It was formerly the Ball beer house from 1855 to 1866 and the Hope of Freedom from 1872. From 1878 to 1891 the Moon family ran it as a lodging house and bar. There was a brutal assault case here in 1879. In 1905 it had six beds in one room. It closed in 1908.

Norfolk Hotel, Marine Parade.

James Barry opened this building, previously known as the Library House, in 1791, as the Marine Library and Billiard Room. Formerly a large boarding house called the Belle Vue, it was first licensed in 1867. It had thirteen bedrooms, a coffee room, restaurant, refreshment room, drawing room and sitting room. ‘The nearest licensed house was the Cutter which was a different class of property.’
In 1877 a half-day beano by local drapery workers started and finished at the Belle Vue. They were members of the Early Closing Movement (i.e. the early day closing campaign, which advocated closing of shops at 1pm on one day a week). Five, four horse carriages and several two horse waggonetts transported eighty members from here to the Saxon Hotel, St Leonards, then to the Harrow on the Ridge and finally to the White Hart, Guestling, before returning to the Belle Vue. The Belle Vue was probably the meeting place of the Hastings branch of the Early Closing Movement.
In 1893 the landlord was summonsed for selling whisky twenty-seven per cent under proof and in 1895 another landlord was a member of the Ancient Order of Druids when ‘large attendances of Druid brothers in their regalia’ were recorded meeting here.
The pub changed its name to the Norfolk Hotel in 1896 and is now the Ambassador fish and chip restaurant.

Oddfellows, Caves Road.
A beer house from 1860s–1953.
In the 1870s there were complaints of ‘a great noise from music, dancing, quarrelling and disorderly crowds’ from the Oddfellows which put it under threat of closure. But by
1905 the Oddfellows was reputed to have ‘the best beer in St Leonards’ and was selling 5½ barrels a week.
About this time the Oddfellows was a target for the ‘bright farthing trick’, where a customer paid for beer with a sovereign which meant that usually there would be a half sovereign in the change. A half sovereign was similar in size to a (polished) farthing or bright farthing, which by sleight of hand was substituted for the half sovereign and the change queried.
Its customers were described as ‘respectable working class’. A master blacksmith from the nearby stable yards said it ‘was a nice place for chaps to have their dinner in’.
In 1912 the chief constable was still opposing the licences of the pubs in Caves Road. That year 140 people signed a petition in support of the Oddfellows. These included carpenters, tailors, cabmen and the secretary of the local branch of the Association of Railway Servants, which held branch meetings at the pub.
In 1912 the pub was still doing well. That year it sold 231 barrels of beer (slightly down on 1905), 642 dozen bottles of beer, numerous bread and cheese lunches and ran a ‘slate club’ where customers saved for Christmas. Its licence was reprieved but challenged again by the chief constable in 1913. However, it survived another 40 years until 1953.

Old House at Home, All Saint’s Street.
Formerly the Ball beer house from 1862 to 1866. Richard Ball applied for a full licence in 1861 but was refused. Sometime after this it acquired the name: The Old House at Home. ‘Ye’ was added in 1907.
It was described as located ‘nearly opposite the Cinque Ports Arms on the high pavement and in bad weather its customers did not like crossing over the road’ to the Cinque Ports Arms which as a fully licensed pub, closed later in the evening. In 1872 the licensee was summonsed for opening after 11pm. It closed in 1911.

Original Good Woman, Fishmarket.
In 1854 the landlord, Tilden Tolhurst, was fined for serving beer after 11pm on a Saturday. The pub sign, which portrayed a woman carrying her severed head under her arm, created a lot of protest in the 1850s.

Palmerston, 39 Queen’s Road (now 75).
Formerly the Cottage or Cottage of Content beer house from at least 1867 when the licensee was John Adams.
In 1878 the landlord, John Abraham Maplesden, was summonsed for having within his possession a drum which was the property of the Rifle Corps whose Drill Hall was in nearby Middle Street. The bandmaster left the drum with the landlord in lieu of payment for a room with refreshments and beer hired by the band. Maplesden agreed to give up the drum if it was sent for by an officer but hoped he would get the 6s [30p] owed to him for the room, food and beer.
Maplesden seems to have allowed a lot of credit as the following year in 1879 he had to claim £1 for accommodation and refreshments owed to him by a trapeze artist from Percy Williams Circus then performing at the Central Cricket Ground.
In 1890 the Palmerston hosted a ‘Smoking Concert’ in its ‘large room’ for Harry Hutchins who ran the ten miles from the Albert Memorial to the Bell Hotel, Bexhill in fifty-eight minutes.
In 1933 the chief constable described the pub as a small house with entrances at the front and the back. The back entrance was described as unfavourable for police supervision and was the reason given for closure. The licensee was compensated to the sum of £2,250. It is now the Muktha Tandoori Restaurant.

Pelican, 20 East Parade, 1830s–1935.

This beer house did not have a specific name until about 1870 when the licensee, James Coleman, named it the Mariners Home. In 1892 it was renamed again as the Pelican after a well-known Hastings vessel of that name whose name pennant is preserved in the Old Town museum.
The licence was opposed in 1912 because there were thirteen other pubs within 300 yards. The Pelican consisted of one long bar with taps at one end and a Jug and Bottle and was an early morning house opening at 5am. Its customers were mainly hawkers, rag and bone men, fishermen and persons who frequented common lodging houses.
Charles Craig ‘the Hastings ferryman’ was another customer and appeared as a witness when the licence was challenged.
This part of East Parade has been variously known as Commercial Road, West Street, West Beach Street and finally in 1896, East Parade. It closed in 1935.

Pilot, 52 Queen’s Road.

The Pilot was one of a number of public houses built when the exodus from America Ground took place in 1835. Others included the Wheatsheaf in Bohemia and the Angel and the Plough on the West Hill.
The first landlord from 1834 was a sailmaker from America Ground called William Nabbs. When he was 12 or 13 years old he had been a letter carrier employed by the post office in the High Street but was later apprenticed as a sailmaker to Messrs Thwaites and Bailey. In 1824 he married Sarah Gallop and took up residence in Rope Walk, America Ground where rope making and sail making were then carried on. He later set up as a sail maker in John Street and is listed in the directory for 1840.
William Nabbs was a liberal and the Pilot was one of at least four Hastings public houses associated with early Liberal politics in the town. Charles Bolingbroke, a political associate of Nabbs undertook a similar role at the Red Lion at the other end of Stone Street, Henry Morley another radical politician took the Angel, and John Bean became landlord of the Kings Head. In the 1830s they organised open air Reform Dinners on the Priory Ground and deputations to prominent liberals. All these pubs held meetings in the liberal cause.
The Nabbs family ran the Pilot until the1840s after which period they transferred to the Swan Shades in Swan Terrace.
The 1872 Licensing Act created some confusion for the Pilot. A police sergeant found three men in the bar on a Sunday morning at 9.20am drinking Porter with rum and milk. The landlord said he had opened the door to sweep out the bar and a ‘higgler’ (i.e. a pedlar), had walked in. As the man had walked 7 miles he accepted he was a ‘bona fide traveller’ and could be served. The definition of a bona fide traveller was one who had travelled at least three miles from where they had slept the previous night. Bona fide travellers and public house lodgers were allowed to be served outside the normal hours under the Act.
The 1870s street directories listed the Pilot as having ‘good beds’ and the landlords main occupation as a ‘bill poster’. In the 1880s the pub was popular with Irish customers and often arguments about Irish politics broke out in the bar.
Between 1906 and 1928 the Pilot had fourteen different landlords. But it was doing a better trade than most other pubs in the area (Bedford, Fountain, Palmerston, Red Lion, Clown, Privateer and the Tiger) and was second only to the Imperial up the road.
It was a free house before being taken over by the Kemptown Brewery of Brighton and was granted a music, singing and dancing licence for wireless only in 1927. But in 1934 when licensee, E. Davey, suddenly died, his widow was effected by a clause in the brewery tenancy agreement which gave her only 14 days notice to quit. The Magistrates Court declared that this was wrong and deleted the ‘unfair clause’.

Minnie Howlett and her husband were customers of the Pilot after the Second World War, when Stan and Dolly Barton ran it from 1948 to 1956. ‘The Pilot was a very popular public house’, she said. It had two bars ‘one up and one down because it was built on the slope of a hill’. (It was on the corner of Queens Road and Stone Street). ‘It had stairs between the bars and sometimes when it was crowded we sat on the stairs at the back. It was always full of customers and my brother-in-law Chick Howlett played the piano there.’
In 1960 the treasurer of the Pilot Thrift Club stole £133 from the club’s savings account. He had run the club for 25 years and claimed the theft ‘was nothing whatever to do with the brewery or the landlord’. He was fined £25 and ordered to repay the money. In its final years the Pilot was a well known cider house and in 1970 it was selling 700 pints of cider a week. It was closed in 1971 and is now an electrical appliance shop.

Prince Albert, 33 North Street.
In 1855 this premises was a greengrocers. Ten years later it had become a simple beer house on the corner of Union Street and North Street, opposite the British Queen (the recently closed Fox).
In 1899 it was the meeting place of the St Leonards branch of the National Union of Operative Bakers who campaigned for better wages and conditions. They ‘were not satisfied with a shilling and a bag of buns’.
In the same year the first annual dinner of the St Leonards branch of the Equitable Friendly Society was held here, the first local branch to be formed in Hastings.
In 1900 the pub held a ‘Smoker’ or smoking concert, for Percy Workman, a soldier in the Coldstream Guards. A watch made by Mr R. Mumford, a jeweller of North Street, was inscribed ‘Presented to Percy Workman by a few of his admirers on his return from the South African war at the Prince Albert, St Leonards, 4th July 1900’. The musical programme that followed, was reported as: ‘far above the average’.
In 1908 the Prince Albert slate club was described as a ‘highly prosperous and successful institution’ and paid out the then very large sum of £1.14s to each of fifteen members.
In 1916 the barman, Joseph Deeprose, attempted suicide, probably because he was required to attend the Hastings Military Tribunal and feared being sent to the war zone. Instead he spent a long period in the local infirmary.
The pub became redundant and closed in 1921. Afterwards it became an antique shop and is now a listed private house.

Prince Alfred, South Street.
A beer house from 1834 located at what is now the South Street car park. By 1850 it was known as The Plasterer’s Arms and in the 1860s there were applications for a full licence. This was opposed by the freeholder, who also owned the Old England Tavern on the adjacent corner. He claimed that a fully licensed neighbour would effect the trade of the Old England. ‘If this licence is granted’, he said, ‘the Old England will become a gin shop’. A full licence was finally granted in 1864.
In 1866 the licence was held by James Ranger a blacksmith, and in 1872 it passed to his widow Ann Ranger. His debts were handled by Thomas Dearing, a bailee, who persuaded the creditors to accept 12s 6d in the pound. When Anne Ranger handed over £110 for payment, he absconded to America.
A branch of the Odd Fellows Friendly Society operated from the Plasterer’s in the 1870s with 230 members. They met every Tuesday evening and paid in a 1p a week or drew benefits accordingly.
About 1870 the Plasterers Arms changed its name to the Prince Alfred. It was during this time that the custom of ‘tossing for ale’ was common but sometimes got out of hand and led to trouble.
Many years later the son of a previous landlord who lived there in the 1880s, claimed that the Prince Alfred was ‘a five o’clock house, opening at that very early hour in the morning for workmen who liked a drink before they started their day’s labour’. However, this was unlikely as pub hours were restricted after the licensing Act of 1872.
From 1880 until 1923 when it became redundant, it had nineteen landlords.

Prince of Wales, Bohemia, 1864–1971.
In 1872 this pub was the location of a coroner’s inquest into a ‘shocking suicide’ of a 40-year-old gardener called William Tendall. His wife found him hanging from the bed post by a piece of clothes line. His hands were warm but his face was black. Their eleven year old son ‘a little boy’, was called as a witness. His father had said to him: ‘Goodbye, I shall be missing when you come home from school, be a good boy to your mother and go to school.’ The inquest found he had ‘committed suicide whilst in a state of temporary insanity due to drink’. He is buried in Bohemia cemetery, (where is it?).

During the Second World War the pub was run by Roland ‘Jack’ Berwick and Maggie May Berwick. Jack worked as a ‘gentleman’s gentleman’ for a millionaire before the war and ran the pub from 1944 until his death in 1946. His widow Maggie May Berwick then ran the Prince of Wales until 1948.
At the end of the war the Prince of Wales had returning prisoners of war among its customers and this is where Jack’s daughter Lena met her future husband Norman. The family now live in Silverhill.

The last landlord of the Prince of Wales was Arthur Tribbeck (1960-1971). When he retired to Brighton in 1971 the pub closed and sometime after became an Antiques Centre. In April 1994 the building became the headquarters of the local Labour Party which it still is. The opening ceremony was reported in the Hastings & St Leonards Observer and included the erroneous claim that the pub was at one time run by “the parents of Gwen Watford the actress” and also that she lived here in her early years.

This claim is incorrect. Her father was indeed a publican but ran the Bohemia Arms (1931-1955) two doors away from the Prince of Wales. I am indebted to David Silverstone of Markwick Terrace and Vic Charlcraft of Bohemia for querying this point. (See Oral History section).

Prince of Wales, Pelham Street.
In the 1870s the landlord was fined £2 for not admitting the police who suspected after hours drinking. In 1878 he was charged for selling spirits without a spirit licence. The main witness who had ‘taken a bed, played cards and drank rum’ there, turned out to be employed by an enquiry agent contracted by the Hastings Licensed Victuallers Association. The case was dismissed. In 1891 the landlord was summonsed for out of hours drinking on Sundays and in 1902 the pub was described as a brothel and the licence was forfeited.

Prince of Wales, 1 Waterloo Passage.
Waterloo Passage is a twitten running between High Street and the Bourne. In the 19th century it was the location of two beer houses.
In 1849 the Mayor of Hastings received a letter from one Rev. Barrett complaining of a disorderly house in St Clements. ‘There is a beer shop called the Prince of Wales in Waterloo Passage’, he said, ‘kept by Tilden Tolhurst. He has dancing and music every Monday evening from 10pm to 12am, drunkenness, conduct quarrelsome and disorderly, obscene language, gambling among children, open prostitution in and above the house…..After the music stops the party retire into private rooms and gamble until 2 or 3 o’clock.’

In 1853 landlord Robert Swaine was fined £12.10s for selling spirits. In the following year a woman drinker was found guilty of selling stolen property in the bar. A cutler who lodged in a cottage in Waterloo Passage was the main witness.

From 1858 to 1869 the landlord was William Oakley, who, in the latter year had his licence revoked because the premises were ‘insufficiently rated’. He said: ‘This is a hard case especially after I have kept it for eleven years. The rating was high enough until the rating committee put it down.’ The magistrate agreed but said: ‘A beer house licence can only be granted to a person of good character whose house is sufficiently rated.’
The 1871 Directory lists J. W. Oakley, ‘licensed victualler and grocer’ in Bourne Walk and other entries show the former Prince of Wales now an Off Licence on the corner of Waterloo Passage and Bourne Walk.

Priory Family Hotel, 24 Robertson Street
The Priory Tavern became the first licensed premises in Robertson Street in 1850 when the landlord was Stephen Jones. The licence was transferred to a Mr Kenyon in 1851 and the premises renamed the Railway & Commercial Inn. The licence was transferred again to Mary and Ellen Eldridge who opposed the licence of the Royal Standard (French’s Bar) also at 24 Robertson Street in the same year. The name was changed again to the Priory Family Hotel in 1854 and in 1859 the magistrates noted that ‘a licence is no longer needed for the Priory’.

Privateer, Wellington Mews, 1840s–1917.
First licensed to Ellen Brazier in 1851 but had been a beer house for many years. In 1854 a police constable reported that he had found railway workers in the house, dancing to a fiddle with ‘girls on the town’. Again in 1856 landlord Richard Wood was reported by Sergeant Brazier for allowing fiddling and dancing after midnight and for permitting two known prostitutes Dover Lizzie and Sally Bates to carouse with young men.
In 1859 and again in 1861 landlord William Brett was one of only two publicans in the town who were cautioned for selling liquor at the old Rock Fair in White Rock. The other publican was William Ball of the Plough, West Hill. They had been wrongly informed by the Excise that the fair was legal and that they could sell liquor, but were told by the police that this was an offence as the fair was ‘illegal’. They got off with a caution.
When W. Weatherly was the licensee in 1891 things got out of hand on the fifth of November when customers were pelted with flour, soot and water by bonfire boys. In 1905 there were several complaints about customers ‘rowing’ in a nearby fried fish shop after closing time.
The chief constable, unsuccessfully tried to close the pub in 1908 and again in 1910. During the First World War in 1917, it was closed temporarily by the Liquor Control Board and never reopened. Presumably because it had allowed soldiers to get drunk.

Queen’s Head, Fishmarket, 1 East Beach Street.

The Queen’s Head was two doors away from the Jolly Fisherman and four doors away from the London Trader. The circular Fish Market, built in 1870 at the bottom of the High Street, was next door. The Queens Head was first licensed by John Tree in 1830 and throughout the Victorian period was popular with visitors. In 1861 the landlord was summonsed for ‘allowing notoriously bad characters to assemble’ in the pub. A police constable observed ‘three prostitutes coming out with a can of beer, two others at the bar and one in another room plus eighteen men’. ‘The men were singing at 1.30am.’ They were Artillery from Brighton being served as Bona Fide travellers.
In 1864, an ‘influential resident of St Leonards’ complained to the magistrates. He said prostitutes lived in the building and took customers there. In 1872 in the taproom, a prostitute was charged with stealing 5s from a labourer from Halton. She asked him to ‘stand me a pot’ of Porter which he did and also gave her three herrings. After she had left he realised he had been robbed, an act for which she was later committed for trial. In the same year the licence was transferred because the landlord had left town ‘and could not be found’.
The Queen’s Head was an early morning pub opening at 5am to serve the fishing community. With a decline in the industry around 1900, the Queen’s Head, like other fishing pubs, struggled on until it finally closed in 1913. It was then tied to Hewetts Brewery. The building is now the Delish Restaurant.

Railway, 1 Havelock Road.
First licensed in 1857 along with the Old Golden Cross on the adjacent corner, when this end of the road was first developed. Situated at the top of Havelock Road it was known as the Railway Hotel or Green’s Railway Hotel for much of the next century.
In 1860 Elizabeth Green was fined for serving out of hours. At this time pubs, particularly railway pubs, were allowed to serve ‘bona fide travellers’ at any time but locals took advantage of this stupidity in the law. Elizabeth Green complained that she was expected to ‘recognise local customers from travellers’. At a later date ‘travellers’ were only served if they had a rail ticket.
The Hastings branch of the National Union of Railwaymen met here in the 1930s and in 1931 Arthur Mitchell, the licensee, was charged with serving ‘afters’ at 11.55pm. Evidence provided by the police was based on what they saw through the saloon’s opaque ‘dull glass windows’. After some dispute about the windows the court adjourned to inspect the windows and to look through them. On their return they agreed they hadn’t been able to see anything through the windows and the charge against the landlord was dropped. But in contradiction, although they agreed that the policeman hadn’t seen a thing, the drinkers were fined anyway.
It closed in 1964 and was demolished in 1965.

Red Lion, 1 Stone Street.
The Red Lion, formerly The Lion, and was first licensed by Charles William Bollingbrook in 1834. Bollingbrook was an early liberal activist in the town along with a number of other landlords (see the Pilot).
In 1860 the landlord owned a piece of land at Halton which he let to Gypsies. In the 1880s the Red Lion was the headquarters of the Borough Bonfire Boys Society formed in 1860. In 1887 the society held a smoking concert at the Red Lion where a ‘handsomely framed illuminated address’ was presented to Henry Link, formerly landlord of the Central Hotel, for his services as treasurer of the society for eight years. There were speakers and toasts and a band played selections of music.

Rising Sun, 18 East Parade.
Early deeds in 1855 refer to the ‘Rising Sun and Cumberland House’. The first licence was granted in 1854 or earlier and in 1859 a man who was charged with being drunk explained that he had won his brandy and water playing dice. At that time the pub employed a boy with a pony and chaise to take the customers home at closing time.
In 1862 the pub displayed the fossilised remains of an extinct animal in the bar. The remains included a tooth weighing 7lbs and a huge circular horn tusk that had been dragged up in a trawl net by a Hastings Lugger.
The premises were sold in 1874 and sold again in 1895 to the Star Brewery of Eastbourne. In 1898 the pub was the headquarters of a local Druids branch and had a 5am licence for the Fish Market, which it lost during the First World War.
In 1933 alterations were carried out because the small bar could only accommodate twenty-five drinkers causing an overspill onto the street. The landlord built a new clubroom upstairs and had a new bar counter fitted.
A local character called Little Bessie appeared in court in 1940 charged with throwing a whisky glass at the landlord, who was present in court wearing dark glasses. Three soldiers had entered the pub and when Bessie’s dog approached them she said: ‘Come away from those … thieves; all soldiers are thieves!’ When told by the licensee not to talk like that she resorted to more obscene language and threw the glass at him. She was fined £5.
In 1943 a room in the pub was designated as the Civil Defence Recreation Training Club room and was the location of a darts competition in ‘Wings For Victory Week’.

Robin Hood, 13 North Street.
In 1855 there was a report of a North Street licensee, James Colvin, being fined for allowing dancing after 11pm on a Sunday. His name is not known in connection with any other North Street licensed premises, so he was probably licensee of the Robin Hood.
In 1862 a ‘Mr Windsor, occupier of the Robin Hood beer house in North Street’ applied for a full licence but was refused. The house did not offer accommodation but it had a cellar, two kitchens, a bar, two parlours, a taproom and four bedrooms.
By 1865 landlord William Harden, who had a second occupation as a ‘carman’, was described as ‘recently removed from the pub‘. He summonsed a person whom he had contracted to store some of the pub equipment for him including ‘beer cans, several pewter measures, a beer engine and some lead pipe’. The accused sold some of the equipment to John Woodhurst, landlord of the Old King John, Ore, without permission. We can only assume that this was when the pub closed.
The Street Directories for 1886–1899 list North Cottages, a twitten with two cottages between numbers 12 and 13. In 1890 number 13 was a laundry. In 1897 number 13 is not listed but between numbers 12 and 14 the twitten was renamed as Valentine’s Cottages. Number 13 was probably one or both of the ‘cottages’ in the twitten today known as North Terrace.

Rose and Crown, George Street.
The Rose and Crown existed from 1753–1833 when local shipbuilders held ‘Settling’ dinners here where their annual accounts were agreed and celebrated. In the latter year the pub was demolished to make way for a new fish market.
The fish market later became the Assembly Room and was leased by Charles West of the Anchor next door who hosted numerous largely attended dinners of the Anchor branch of the Oddfellows here.
The building was also a major meeting place throughout the 19th century for several organisations. Large meetings of suffragettes, unemployed campaigners and the Temperance movement are recorded. It is now known as the Black Market.

Royal Oak, Oak Passage, High Street.
Named after the Boscobel tree, which gave shelter to Charles II after the battle of Worcester in 1651. In 1666 Edward Cooper, the landlord, was sent to gaol for keeping a disorderly house and for being drunk himself.
The premises were rebuilt and became the Hastings Free Dispensary in 1830. The inscription on the face of the building can identify it.

Royal Oak Hotel, Castle Street.
The Royal Oak Hotel was first licensed in 1831, if not earlier. The premises were the headquarters of an early Hastings Cycling Club in the mid-nineteenth century.
The Acorn Club, a charity, also had its headquarters here and like the Winkle Club, members were required to carry an acorn at all times, or pay a fine to the charity.
The Royal Oak was bombed in the Second World War and never reopened. Its licence was transferred to the Hollington Oak, a new pub in Wishing Tree Road in 1950. The ruins from this war damage were cleared in 1957.

Ship, Post Office Passage/Bourne Street. 1824–1908.
In 1855 a policeman heard the sound of a ‘raffling cup’ (a means of deciding who would pay for the beer), coming from the Ship and found a man and a prostitute in the backyard ‘in a very indecent position’. He later returned to find ‘the same pair engaged in the same act in the same place’. He said the pub was a very rough lodging house ‘worse than a brothel’. The landlord was fined 10s [50p] with 19s 6d [97½p] costs.

By 1879 things hadn’t changed much. The landlord, William Bowra, was charged with ‘allowing prostitutes to remain on the premises longer than necessary to obtain refreshments’ (which is one way of describing it!). However, a police constable had observed that female customers were ‘fully dressed and wore hats and dresses’. Consequently the case was dismissed but the magistrate said: ‘The evidence did not give the bench a very high opinion of the character of the Ship.’

In December 1883 a customer was charged with attempting to obtain 6d by fraud. He bought a pint of beer with a shilling (12d) and got 10d change. He then said: ‘I have got some change. Would you take a sixpence and sixpenny of coppers and give me the shilling back?’

According to the police in 1905, the Ship was frequented by a low class of customer usually with a criminal record. It closed in 1908 and the premises were sold by Tamplins the Brighton brewers in 1910.

Shipwright’s Arms, Castle Street-Winding Street.
The Shipwright’s Arms opened in 1823 in Castle Street next to the shipbuilding yards of Ransome and Rowling and took its name from the employees in the yards. In 1835 landlord John Gallop applied to relocate the pub and the name to Winding street in the Bourne.
In the 1860s there were complaints about musicians arguing in the bar. In 1911 the licence was opposed by the police and referred for compensation. The pub was granted a provisional licence until 1912 when it was closed. The property and the adjacent Phoenix Brewery were sold by auction at the Castle Hotel and the pub then became a private house.
The ‘Conditions of Sale’ described the building as having four bedrooms and a WC on the top floor with another three rooms on the first floor - a front room ‘recently used as a bar’, a bar parlour, a smoking room, plus a WC and a staircase leading to the cellars on the ground floor.

St Leonards Arms, Shepherd Street.
This pub stood two doors away from the Foresters Arms and was attached to the St Leonards Brewery (formerly the Crown Brewery) situated behind.
The St Leonards Arms, formerly the Crown Tap, allegedly came into existence in 1827 making it the oldest pub in St. Leonards. It applied for a full licence in 1850, which was refused and in 1854 landlord James Nabbs was summonsed for selling spirits. A witness said he bought two glasses of Porter at 1½d each, 2d worth of bread and cheese and a glass of gin for 3d ‘from under the counter’.
In 1858 the brewery was auctioned and was described as ‘embracing all modern improvements: a dwelling, stores and stabling in Shepherd Street and six adjoining dwellings in London Road’. The pub was granted a full licence in 1859 and became the St Leonards Arms when the brewery was renamed St Leonards Brewery.
In the 1890s it advertised ‘good accommodation for cyclists‘ and in 1907 both brewery and pub were purchased by Breeds Brewery of Hastings.
In 1920 two men, one a demobbed Canadian soldier, stole two vases from a boarding house in Warrior Square. They attempted to sell the vases to the barman John Moule, who lived in Market Passage. He reported the incident and they were fined 40s [£2]. ‘This public house is not a pawn shop for stolen property’, said the magistrate. It closed in 1921.

St Leonards Tap, Marina.
Another early watering hole in St Leonards was situated in the basement or ground floor of the St Leonards Hotel (now the Royal Victoria).
Because of the large number of building workers in St Leonards in 1830 and with only one pub - the Horse and Groom - it was felt necessary to open a tap in the locality. The St Leonards Tap was popular with smugglers, their runners known as ‘tubmen’, agricultural workers and artisan builders.
In 1833 the landlord, Charley Vine, organised a race along the promenade from St Leonards Tap to Priory Bridge between a local ‘pugilist’ Mike Woods and an unnamed tubman. Tubmen carried barrels of brandy strapped on their backs for the smugglers and were reputed to be very fast on their feet. ‘It was a pluckily contested race with the tubman taking the lead for the most part and keeping it until Pork Farroll’s beer house (near the end of Robertson Street) where the tubman put on an effective spurt and realised the promise to win.’ Charley Vine collected a lot of winnings.
As the hotel became more fashionable and other pubs opened up in St Leonards, the tap was relinquished and the flight of steps leading down to it became disused.

Star in the East, Rock-a- Nore Road.
This pub opened in 1837. At one time Rock-a-Nore road consisted of twenty houses. Three of them were public houses: the Star, the Dolphin and the Prince Albert with a further twenty pubs and six beer houses in 400 yards!
The Star in the East got most of its custom from the fishing community. When the industry went into decline with the introduction of steam trawlers in the 1890s, a number of pubs around the Stade, including the Star found it difficult to continue. Closed in 1912.

Star in the West, 18 Undercliffe.
Opened in 1852 as the Albert Inn (and Shades). It was then the residence of butcher and Hastings councillor Edward Waghorn. In 1855 the St Leonards Vestry held town meetings here to discuss, among other things, land for burials.
By 1878 it had become The Star and by 1880 the Star in the West, (as opposed to the ‘Star in the East’ in Rock-A-Nore Road).
In 1900 it was advertised as ‘the only house in town where ales are drawn from the wood (untrue), and displayed a flag on the roof. It had seventy-two coloured lights across the front to celebrate The Relief of Mafeking’ in the Boer War.
In 1910 the Tory member of parliament, Arthur Du Cross, was an honorary subscriber of the Star in the West slate club, which that year paid out the not inconsiderable sum of £109.13s 9d between seventy-five members. It was also noted for its bagatelle room.
The pub was bombed in the Second World War and completely destroyed. Its licence, as late as 1959, was still ‘in suspense’ but was finally transferred to the bar of the West St. Leonards Bathing Pool in that year. The site of the pub is now the open space behind Marine Court.

Sun Inn, Tackleway.
The Sun Inn was formerly a beer house called the Cutter Foam which burnt down in 1873. The pub was granted a first licence in 1867, which lapsed in 1871 but was then renewed.
In 1878 Breed’s Brewery, to whom the pub was tied, would not transfer the licence to a landlord who had been in situ for twelve months, ‘because he had not conducted business in a proper manner’. The landlord in his defence said: ‘The house was a brothel before I took over.’
In 1939 licensee J. M. Walker acted as unpaid Air Raid Warden for the area but he had gone by 1944 when a London bus driver applied for the licence. He left his job, a National Service Employment, without permission and in court said that after his wife died running a household was too much to cope with. He moved to Hastings, and finding the Sun Inn needed a landlord, he applied. His story was reported as ‘Busman gets a place in the Sun’.
The landlord reportedly had some trouble with the ’Mods’ during the riots of the 1960s but they eventually moved elsewhere.
Tackleway is a narrow street and delivery lorries found access difficult. Also it was proposed to redevelop the area under the Holford Plan in the 1960s. For these two reasons it closed in 1970.

Sussex Tap, Marina, St Leonards.
This was the taproom of the Sussex Hotel on the corner of the Marina and Sussex Street. It opened in the early 1830s and had a dance hall with excellent acoustics popular with middle class customers. The St Leonards Quadrille Band played here regularly until about 1840, when the tap and dance hall were integrated into the hotel.
The Sussex Tap was one of the pubs involved in the ‘treating scandal’ of 1837. During the 1837 general election the Conservative candidate Joseph Planta was accused of spending thousands of pounds to bribe voters. In a subsequent court case in 1840 Jemima French, the landlady, was called as a witness and described large gatherings of ‘pink voters’ at the Sussex Tap drinking free punch with funds provided by the Conservative candidate. ‘Pink voters’ were conservative voters who believed in reform and the extension of the franchise.
The hotel was probably re-licensed in the 1860s.

Tiger Inn, 19 Stonefield Road.

The Tiger first opened in 1848 and had two small bars with separate entrances. A second small pub nearby was called the Lion. In 1851 a female customer who took money from the till was tackled by the landlady and locked in the coalhole until the police arrived.
Robert Howlett was landlord from 1908–1929. On his death in 1929 his wife Sarah took over until 1932 when the Tiger closed. It then became a sweet shop and private house.
Tony Howlett, Robert’s grandson, still has a telescopic spirit measure, which belonged to his grandfather. ‘It is made of brass and when collapsed fitted into a case. He wore it rather like a pocket watch,’ he said.

Victoria Tavern, 82 High Street.
The Victoria Tavern beer house was located opposite the Roebuck (now the Roebuck Surgery) and granted a licence in 1860 when it had been a beer house for six months. It had twelve good size rooms and ‘would be more respectable as an inn than as a beer house’ said the landlord.
But renewal of the licence was refused in 1869 because of ‘notoriously bad behaviour’. Thomas Piddlesden applied again in 1871 but was also refused.

The Volunteer, Middle Street
This small beer house in Middle Street was run by at least three generations of the Beale family. Margaret Beale, (known as Minnie) born 1920 in a cottage behind the Hole in the Wall, Hill Street, grew up in the Volunteer.
The photograph of Elizabeth Beale, Minnie’s aunt, was taken outside the pub in about 1920. Minnie’s father, grandfather and great grandfather were all licensees of the Volunteer one after the other from 1910–1947. All three landlords had the same name: Frederick Edwin Beale, as did Minnie’s brother. Minnie’s mother was Emily Beale and Minnie’s grandmother was Mildred Beale. Minnie’s great grandmother’s name is unknown.
Watney’s Pimlico Ale, advertised at the top of the building, has an interesting history. Pimlico Ale was originally brewed on a farm (Pimlico Farm) in Derbyshire and sold in London pubs. It was eventually brewed at the Stag Brewery in what later became the Pimlico district of London. Thus an area of the capital is named after an old ale. It had a reputation as a strong ale and those who drank it were considered serious drinkers. Although the reputation of this beer had changed by the time of the photograph the name still carried overtones from the past. In Hastings it was obviously popular with fishermen.
‘We had a lot of customers from the fish market, says Minnie, ‘and from the fishing community generally. Mother’s home-made cheesecakes, a cheese pastry, had a local reputation. They were much talked about and in demand. The fishermen queued up for them on Sundays when mother gave them out for free.’
‘The Volunteer had two separate small bars and a big room at the back used for darts, cribbage and shove-penny. On Saturday evenings we had a pianist who played and sang in there and people danced. Women came to the pub but were always accompanied by their husbands. They never came on their own. Thursday night,’ added Minnie, ‘was volunteer drill night in the “shed” and so Thursday nights were very busy and packed with volunteers.’
‘The Priory stream ran underground through the area and sometimes flooded the cellar. I remember the bottles clanking about in the cellar as they floated in the floodwater. I was there in the Second World War when the area around Middle Street was bombed. I can remember the bombing and the reverberations that shook the pub,’ she said, ‘but the Volunteer wasn’t hit’.
‘The pub closed during the Blitz in 1940, reopened, then closed again in 1947 when father died.’ A new landlord Edward Booth took over in 1948 (‘Teddy Booth was one of the youngest landlords in Hastings – in his 20s,’ said Ron Fellows) and was granted a wine licence in 1949, ending the Volunteer’s eighty-two years of life as a beer house. The Volunteer stayed open for another seven years until it was finally declared redundant by the magistrates and closed in 1956. The pub sign is now in Hastings Museum.
In 1940 Minnie married into another Hastings pub family the Howlett’s. Her father-in-law Robert Howlett was landlord of the Tiger, a small pub in Stonefield Road from 1908 until 1929. His wife Sarah was landlady from 1929 until 1931.

Warrior’s Arms, Norman Road, 1878 –1905.
Not to be confused with the Warrior’s Gate the Warrior’s Arms opened in 1878 as a beer house next door to the Norman Hotel. The police once described it as a bar frequented by ‘undesirable, loose and idle people who generally stand at street corners’.
It was popular with excursionists, i.e. day-trippers to St Leonards who, during the summer months came for lunch. It was one of five Hastings pubs made redundant in 1905. It is now the coin shop.

White Hart, Norman Road.
The White Hart grew from a simple beer shop in 1856 and probably before. A full licence was applied for at least three times and was finally granted in 1868. The application was supported by a petition signed by some ‘influential residents’ including one ‘Mr Smith of the Temperance Society’, who emphasised the adjacent passage leading up from Grand Parade. The first landlord was Charles Foord who stayed for thirty years until 1888.
On a Sunday morning in 1872 a police constable spotted a woman coming out of the side door with a jug of Porter under her shawl, which she was carrying home. Harriet Landale of 27 Norman Road was fined 5s plus costs for buying beer out of hours but the landlord Charles Foord was only cautioned.
In the 1870s Klee’s German Band used to play here. One evening an argument broke out over what music to play and two musicians, Joseph Castleani and Joseph Muller, started fighting. They were charged and in court told to make it up. ‘No my boy, said Muller, I have more marks than you.’ German bands were popular in St Leonards and often heard playing on the Marina and Grand Parade.
From 1905 to 1914 the White Hart was run by landlady Mrs Young and in 1915 the licence was transferred from A. Lucina to William Rayner. During these years it had three small bars.
In the1920s it was tied to Leney’s Brewery of Lamberhurst and was the only Leney’s pub in St Leonards but was a free house for wines and spirits. In 1923 Elvey Thomas, formerly the licensee and manager of the St Leonards Pier for twenty years, took it over. During the First World War he became a special constable and then joined the Navy. He stayed at the White Hart for thirty years.
During his time as landlord the pub tended towards the middle classes of St Leonards. It was a small, comfortable house where the customers found some peace and comfort. It was a pub with a better class of beer catering for trades’ people, commercial travellers and summer visitors.
When the Marine Court restaurant opened in 1936 and was granted a licence, the White Hart and several other local pubs opposed it.
By the 1950s the White Hart’s trade was in decline. Most of the customers were friends of Elvey Thomas. Under his management there was no singing, dancing or darts just conversation and good beer. It was declared redundant and closed in 1953. It is now a private house owned by the proprietors of Hastings Antiques.

White Hart, All Saints Street.
An inn which existed from 1650 until 1765 at least.

White Lion, Dorset Place.
The White Lion opened in 1866 to serve the employees of a nearby slaughterhouse. In 1871 Mrs Perigo, the licensee, was cautioned for ‘permitting prostitutes to assemble in her house’. She pleaded with magistrates not to remove her licence but was refused.
The White Lion was situated about seventy yards from the Dripping Well and the Tubman (then the Carpenters). The landlord was summonsed again in 1874 for harbouring prostitutes and yet again in 1892 for ‘raffling’, i.e. a means of deciding who paid for the beer by tossing a coin from a raffle cup. The police classed the practice as a form of gambling even though it was only for beer.
It had eight landlords in the eight years prior to closing in 1909.

Whitefriars, 127 Priory Road.
The Whitefriars was on the ground floor of a large building with apartments above. It opened in 1876. When the licensee died in 1934 his widow was effected by a tenancy clause, which allowed her only fourteen days to vacate the premises. On appeal ‘this unfair clause’ was repealed by the magistrates and she was granted longer.
It was used by teachers from the Priory Road Schools in the 1970s and is remembered for it’s dart teams. One ex customer described the pub as in the darts super league. It closed in 2008.

One Response to “Lost Pubs M-Z”

  1. Terry says:

    The Oddfellows Beer House in Caves Road appears to vanish from Pike’s at some point between 1926 and 1930. I suspect this is closer to its true closing date rather than 1953. The building seems to be in use as a cafe by 1947.

    Pikes refer to the Oddfellows Arms in Ore as the ‘Oddfellows’ (without arms) and the Caves Road beer house as the ‘Oddfellows Arms’ (with arms). A minor point perhaps, but interesting nonetheless.

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