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Lost pub · Scotch Street

The Captain Cook

Gone 1887

Gone
Demolished in 1887 for the new Covered Market
There now
The entrance to the Covered Market and the ground it was built on
Address
Captain Cook's Lane, off Scotch Street
Where exactly
Off Scotch Street, beside the Covered Market entrance. The exact spot isn't known, so the pin marks the street, not the building.

A pub down Captain Cook's Lane, which ran off the west side of Scotch Street just north of what is now the main entrance to the Covered Market. A Cumberland News column of 9 August 1991 says the pub itself cannot be seen in its picture, but the entrance to the lane can, with the pub's nameboard over it in the centre of the view of the west side of Scotch Street. From the right the picture shows Fenwick's Tea and Coffee Warehouse, in property that still stands just north of the market's main entrance, then the two properties to its left that were demolished for the new market entrance, then two others still standing and, in 1991, being given a facelift.

The lettering over the lane's entrance shows that it was also the way into the Butter and Egg Market, built in 1854 as an extension to the butchers' shambles. In 1887 the pub and the two Scotch Street properties either side were pulled down to make way for the entrance to the new Covered Market, built on the site of the old one: No. 32, occupied by George Graham, grocer, with tea, coffee and refreshment rooms above, and No.

30, occupied by James Martin, boot manufacturer. When the photograph was taken Mary Parkins was licensee, which by the city directories would probably date it to before 1884-85, when she died. Her daughter Amelia then took over the licence and held it until the pub was demolished, though the column allows that the nameboard may simply not have been updated at once. Parson and White's directory of 1829 names Fortunatus Creighton as its keeper.

The Patriot's report of the market's foundation stone in December 1887 lists the Captain Cook Inn and two shops in Scotch Street, with the Half Moon and Mushroom Hall in Fisher Street, among the Corporation property that 'has been, or is about to be demolished', and at the opening in 1889 the paper counted the same houses in a total cost for the new markets of over £50,000. J. Whitesmith signed the innkeepers' memorial of February 1867 for the Captain Cook.

Photograph

Engraving of a row of buildings on Scotch Street: on the left a plain archway lettered Butcher's Market, in the middle three-storey shops and houses, and on the right a tall ornamented frontage with a great round arch lettered Public Markets, with a few people on the pavement
The winning design for the Covered Market's Scotch Street entrance, published in December 1886. The new arch was built where the Captain Cook and the two shops either side of it stood Carlisle Patriot supplement, 10 December 1886, p. 9, © The British Library Board, via the British Newspaper Archive, engraving of 1886, out of copyright

Sources

Open question

What we don't know yet

Where exactly did the Captain Cook stand, and is there any trace of Captain Cook's Lane left beside the Covered Market? The Cumberland News of 9 August 1991 puts it just north of the main entrance, but no other record on this site mentions it.

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 Captain Cook

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