The Citadel Tavern

Built

In the directories from 1920, on the site of the Wellington and the Three Crowns

Gone

Became Yates Wine Lodge in 1986

There now

The building survives. Outrageous, the last venue on record in it, closed in 2019

Address

77-79 English Street

Where exactly

At the English Street entrance to the Lowther Arcade, near the corner of Devonshire Street, where the old Three Crowns building still stands.

One pub out of two. The scheme amalgamated the Wellington Inn with the Three Crowns next door, and the Citadel Tavern is what came out.

The Three Crowns had been there from at least the early years of the nineteenth century, trading before 1801, a two-storey pub by the Cumberland News of 31 May 1991, at the English Street entrance to the Lowther Arcade, near the corner of Devonshire Street. It was the polling place for St Cuthbert's Ward in the city's first council election, of December 1835. Henry Barber kept it in 1829 and Thomas Hudson in 1861, and Hudson was still keeping it in February 1867, when he signed the innkeepers' memorial.

The city council's minutes for 1896-97 mention alterations to the old pub, and those of the following year record a deviation from the agreed plans for the new building that was eventually to become the Citadel: the oriel window on the frontage projected further over the street than it should have. That building was by Henry Higginson, who also built the arcade's Lowther Street entrance for the Carlisle Old Brewery Company; the arcade, which runs through to Lowther Street, dates from 1904.

The Wellington had changed its name before: it traded as the Bull and Butcher either side of 1820, as the French Horn from 1826 to 1837 (Joseph Purdie kept it as the French Horn and died in 1838), and as the Wellington from 1840 until the amalgamation. Not to be confused with the other Three Crowns, on Rickergate, which closed in 1916 and stood where the Civic Centre is now.

The Three Crowns was a Carlisle Old Brewery house when the scheme acquired it in August 1916, and the scheme took the arcade along with the pub. The Cumberland News of 7 October 1916 reported the Board's plan to combine the Three Crowns and the Wellington into one large inn, taking in part of the Lowther Arcade. On 1 November the Board's general manager reported that the local committee had recommended 'very large alterations' to seven houses, the Three Crowns and the Wellington in English Street, the Albion in Botchergate, the Goliath in Crown Street, the Pheasant in Caldewgate and the Old Black Bull and the Saracen's Head in Annetwell Street, with the work in hand and expected to take four months.

It was remodelled to Redfern's plans for middle-class customers at higher prices, and the Cumberland News of 13 October 1917 said it would open to the public on the Monday after, 15 October, as a restaurant for the professional classes. Mr and Mrs McTavish were to run it, he formerly of the Hotel Metropole, Leeds, she of the Picture House Cafe in Briggate, Leeds. A table d'hote luncheon was to cost 1s 6d and dinner 2s 6d. The paper's preview set out the arrangement: the dining room and lounge on the ground floor, the cafe and restaurant upstairs in a handsome room facing English Street, and a firm distinction from the Board's other houses, since the Citadel was the only refreshment house it ran in Carlisle where a meal could cost more than 1s 3d for the food alone.

Historic England's survey describes what the professional classes got: a grand round-headed doorway between shops, a vaulted hall, a brasserie and a refreshment room on the ground floor, and higher prices to match. It appears in the directories from 1920, at 77-79 English Street, though one record dates it from 1922. It was also called the Citadel Restaurant, a name that could still be read on the front of the old Three Crowns building in 2016, and for a time the City Diner.

The scheme kept reworking it. Historic England's survey has consultants proposing in 1961 a self-service restaurant downstairs and a grill bar above, and its gazetteer has the ground floor rebuilt in 1964 and the restaurant reopening on 21 June 1968 with new banqueting rooms on the first floor; one record has it reconstructed in 1967. In October 1966 the scheme's jubilee supplement had the next change coming: new decor, a steak bar, and the bar opened up to the main street. That December the Carlisle Journal ran a piece on the Citadel headed 'Ghost who came in for a pint', the sort of story every old city pub eventually acquires.

The scheme sold it, together with the Lowther Arcade, to Scottish & Newcastle on 20 April 1973 (24 May by another account). It kept the Citadel name until 1986, and its premises in the arcade then became Yates Wine Lodge until 2008, Annabel's until 2010 and Outrageous until 2019. The Carlisle Encyclopaedia also records an Annabelle's on Lowther Street, 'formerly Citadel Tavern', opening in November 1986.

Sold as the Citadel Restaurant and Wine Stores to Scottish & Newcastle for £250,000, handed over on 20 April 1973. Who bought the rest

Photograph

Also lost on English Street

• The Liverpool Arms
• The String of Horses Inn
• The White Lion Inn
• The Royal Hotel
• The White Hart Hotel
• The White Swan Inn
• The Grey Goat Hotel
• The Kings Arms Inn
• The Angel Inn
• The Wellington Inn
• The White Horse Inn
• The Bush Hotel
• The Victoria Hotel
• Yates Wine Lodge
• Outrageous
• The Bull Dog Inn
• The Carlisle Arms
• The Cross Keys
• The Crown & Anchor
• The Pack Horse Inn
• The Skinners Arms

66 other lost pubs stood within 250 m of here. See them on the map

Still serving, near where it stood

• Open Mind

  City Centre
  0 maway

• Coyote Joe's

  City Centre
  30 maway

• The Arcade Morgan's Bar

  City Centre
  30 maway

• Thin White Duke

  City Centre
  60 maway