Lost pub · Annetwell Street
Black Bull Vaults
- Built
- Early 19th century
- Gone
- Acquired 23 August 1916 and closed almost at once
- There now
- Castle Way. The whole north side of the street went in 1972-73
- Where exactly
- The viewpoint of the lost-pubs photograph of the street. Somewhere on this street, not this doorway
Bought by the scheme on 23 August 1916 and shut almost immediately, but not because it was a bad pub. The Board wanted a large house on this site and it already had the Saracen's Head next door, bought three weeks earlier. It closed both, knocked down the partition wall between them and opened the two as one in October 1917 under a new name, the Irish Gate Tavern. That lasted until 1971. The entire north side of Annetwell Street was demolished in 1972 and 1973 for Castle Way, the inner ring road, so nothing of any of it survives.
A photograph of the Black Bull taken in 1902 is the only view of it. It was known as the Old Black Bull until 1855 and carried a nickname of its own, the Blazing Barrel, from a gas-lit sign that hung outside. David Spedding kept it in 1829, still under the old name, and William Skelton, a 39-year-old wine and spirit merchant born in Wigton, is recorded there in the 1891 census. It was rebuilt around 1878 or 1879 and stayed in the local directories until 1914.
The 1865 Ordnance Survey map marks it as the "Old Black Bull Inn"; the same source also lists a "Black Bull [Old]" on Irishgate Brow from the same map, which on the balance of the evidence looks like this building under its old street name rather than a separate pub, since Irishgate Brow ran directly into this stretch of Annetwell Street.
Sources
Location from geograph.org.uk. Placed on the right street, not the exact spot.
Also lost on Annetwell Street
Still serving, near where it stood
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200 maway
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210 maway
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250 maway
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260 maway