Lost pub · Caldewgate
Royal Oak
- Gone
- Reduced to off-sales by 1920, demolished 1987
- There now
- Redeveloped
- Address
- 46 Bridge Street
- Where exactly
- Placed from the Ordnance Survey grid reference, NY3938555990, in Historic England's gazetteer of the scheme's premises. The building has since been demolished.
A slow ending rather than a sudden one. The Royal Oak was trading on Bridge Street before 1821, on the north side of Caldewgate, a local for people in the once populous Caldewgate area. Kelly's directories give it as 46 Bridge Street. Parson and White's directory of 1829 names Thomas Crone as its keeper, and James Armstrong, born at Hesket, was publican here in 1861 at thirty-eight. Mary Rocaw signed the innkeepers' memorial of February 1867 for a Royal Oak, probably this one. In June 1886 the licence passed from the late Jonah Little to his widow, Sarah Little. James Wyles had it in 1897, George Boak, a Carlisle man of thirty, by 1901, and George Hind in 1906.
It was a Carlisle New Brewery house when the scheme took it in August 1916. A Cumberland News column of 13 December 1991 says that after that it did not survive long as a pub: from 1920 the directories list it as off-sales only, one of only five such shops the scheme ran in Carlisle. Historic England's gazetteer has the scheme closing it by 1917, which may be the pub side going and the off-sales carrying on. It stayed that way for nearly fifty years, to 1968: a pub reduced to a shop counter and left to run down rather than closed outright, which is a quieter way of doing what the Board did to the Queens Head up the road in 1918.
It went to Greenall Whitley when the scheme was sold off, and for its last years, from 1973 to 1987, the off-licence traded as Cellar 5. Changes in Caldewgate led to its closure through lack of trade: a spokesman said the shop was no longer in a good position because people no longer lived in Caldewgate and the double yellow lines outside meant customers could not park nearby. The property was then demolished by its new owners, the Graham and Bowness garage, who needed room to expand, and a column of 29 November 1991 dates that demolition to June 1987. The 1991 photograph is from the Cumbria Record Office. By 2018 its site was a supermarket car park and petrol station. Not the Royal Oak at Scotby or the one at Moorhouse, both still serving.
Photograph
Sources 9
- carlisle-encyclopaedia.co.uk
- CARLISLE_PUBS_Ver_3.xls (Mike Tuer's pub database)
- Historic England, Countering the 'deadliest of foes': public houses of the Central Control Board and the State Management Scheme, 1916-73 (Clare Howard, Research Report 89-2018): Appendix C, gazetteer of scheme premises
- The Cumberland News, 13 December 1991, p. 4: 'Pubs of yesteryear', Royal Oak, Caldewgate (via newspapers.com)
- Carlisle Patriot, 25 September 1891, p. 6: 'Public houses in Carlisle sixty years ago', reprinting the 1829 Parson and White directory list (via British Newspaper Archive)
- Carlisle Patriot, 11 June 1886, p. 3: 'Carlisle Police Court', transfer of licences (via British Newspaper Archive)
- Carlisle Journal, 22 February 1867, p. 6: the Public Houses Closing Act and the innkeepers' memorial (via British Newspaper Archive)
- Kelly's Directory of Cumberland (London: Kelly and Co., 1897), Carlisle: street directory and public houses (University of Leicester digital copy)
- Kelly's Directory of Cumberland (London: Kelly and Co., 1906), Carlisle: street directory and public houses (University of Leicester digital copy)
Also lost on Caldewgate
- The Bricklayers Arms
- Queens Head Inn
- The Pheasant Inn
- The Globe Inn
- The Rodney Inn
- The Old Queens Head
14 other lost pubs stood within 250 m of here. See them on the map
Still serving, near where it stood
-
40 maway
-
270 maway
-
400 maway
-
480 maway