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Lost pub · Botchergate

The Albion Tavern

1858 to about 1992

Built
Purpose-built as a pub and trading by 1858 (its opening is usually given as February 1859); rebuilt by Harry Redfern 1917
Gone
Renamed the Border Rambler in the early 1990s
There now
The Border Rambler, still trading
Address
45-47 Botchergate
Where exactly
Placed from the Ordnance Survey grid reference, NY4038855542, in Historic England's gazetteer of the scheme's premises. The building's use in 2018: public house (Border Rambler).

Another lost name rather than a lost building. The Albion is usually said to have opened in February 1859, purpose-built, with its door round the corner on Portland Place because two shops occupied the Botchergate frontage, but the Post Office directory of 1858 already lists 'Albion, R. Johnston, 5 Portland place, Botchergate'. A stone in the rear arch on Portland Place carries the initials of Joseph and Mary Iredale of the High Brewery and the date 1850, eight years before that first directory listing; Mary was Joseph's second wife and died in 1862.

Jos. Tiffin signed the innkeepers' memorial of February 1867 for the Albion Hotel, and in September 1886 its licence passed from T. Norman to J. Graham. James Clarke had it in 1901. The two Botchergate shops came down in 1905 so the pub could be enlarged. John Telford, who also kept the Queen Adelaide, had it in 1914.

It was an Iredale's Brewery house when the State Management Board bought it in August 1916. The Board shut it that October and had Harry Redfern redesign it; it was one of seven houses for which the Board's local committee had recommended 'very large alterations' by 1 November 1916, with the work then expected to take four months.

What reopened on 7 June 1917 stood on the site of the old Albion plus half of next door's Deakin's Vaults, which the scheme had closed; the other half became a shop. A letter printed in the Cumberland News on 18 November 1922 confirms it: part of Deakin's Vaults, it says, 'now form[s] part of the Albion Tavern'. There was an Albion Cafe on the first floor, and when the Board listed its reconstructed houses by the customers each was meant for, in October 1917, the Albion was the one 'for shoppers'.

The scheme sold it to John Smith's on 7 May 1973. In the 1980s David and Dorothy Hill, who had started in the trade under the scheme, were its tenants as the Albion Tavern. It kept the Albion name until the early 1990s, when it became the Border Rambler, and it is open now. So of the two pubs that stood here, one name survives and one does not.

Photograph

Old printed photograph of a dining room laid with white tablecloths and cutlery between high-backed wooden settles, framed pictures and a clock on the walls and a pot plant on the nearest table
The dining room of the Albion Tavern under State Management Cumbria Image Bank, image ct41194, used with permission
Old printed photograph of a bar room with a panelled counter and shelves of bottles behind it, wheelback chairs at plain tables, pot plants and tall windows at the back
The bar of the Albion Tavern under State Management Cumbria Image Bank, image ct41193, used with permission

Sources 13

Open question

A date we can't pin down

Why does the Albion's rear arch on Portland Place carry Joseph and Mary Iredale's initials and the date 1850? Its opening is usually given as February 1859, but it is already in the directory of 1858, so the arch may give the building's real date.

If you know the answer, or where it might be found (an old photograph, a family story, a document), tell us and it goes into the story above.

Tell us about The Albion Tavern

Also lost on Botchergate

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