Lost pub · Lonsdale Street

Buskers

Gone: Closing date not recorded
There now: Not established. Soul in the City held the premises from 2011 until 2016
Address: 20-22 Lonsdale Street
Where exactly: At 20-22 Lonsdale Street, part of the block at 18-22 where Soul in the City also traded, so the pin marks the building.

Remembered as the most popular club in the city through the nineties and into the two thousands, and off the main strip: Lonsdale Street, not Botchergate. It was where the trendy crowd went, with a strict door, no jeans and no trainers, and Wednesday nights were famous for the queue. A local history group remembers it as Carlisle's last 'band' nightclub. One former regular, writing after they had moved away, said simply that they had not been out in Carlisle since Buskers closed, which is as good a measure of a club as any. Its address is given as 20-22 Lonsdale Street in one listing and 14-20 in another.

Its end was reported in January 2004. Ged Crooks, 64, who also owned the Lakes Court Hotel and Leonardo's, had closed it and was selling it, or letting it on a long lease, to SM Leisure, owners of Robertson's Cafe Bar on Lowther Street, who planned an £800,000 refit with a glass front and a private members' bar and a new name, Village. 'It's sad to be leaving Buskers behind but it needs to be refurbished and that's a job for a younger man.' SM Leisure went into administration later in 2004, its troubles put down to the money spent on the two buildings, so the relaunch came to little if anything.

Soul in the City took 18-22 from 2011, holding the old address and more besides, and closed in its turn in 2016. The University of Cumbria's alumni pages say Buskers became a Pizza Base takeaway; the Pizza Base today is at 4-10 Lonsdale Street, a few doors down, so the two accounts do not quite meet. It is sometimes said locally that Buskers became Smiley's; that appears to be a crossed wire, because Smiley's is at 70 Botchergate in what was Mood, a mile of pavement away.

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What's above is everything on file, and it isn't much. If you drank in it, or your family did, or you've a photograph of it, that's more than the records hold.

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