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Lost pub · Rickergate

The Durham Ox

1829 to 1909

Built
In local directories from 1829
Gone
Licence refused and sent for compensation, 1909
There now
Not established
Address
27 Rickergate (9 before the renumbering)
Where exactly
Placed by house number on the east side of Rickergate, between the Fox & Hounds and the Bay Horse, from the order of the houses in Kelly's directories of 1894 to 1906 and the Ordnance Survey map of 1865. The position is approximate.

Renamed once and back again. It was trading at 9 Rickergate by 1793, number 27 once the street was renumbered in the 1860s. Joseph Barton is named at the sign in the 1829 directory, p164. In December 1833 it was advertised to let from Whitsuntide 1834 as 'commodious and well-accustomed', lately given a complete repair, with extensive stabling, and it was the polling place for Rickergate Ward in Carlisle's first council election, on 26 December 1835, with Mr E. Rowland as the Mayor's deputy. The Carlisle Journal advertised it to let again on 23 November 1839.

Between 1847 and 1857 it traded under a different name entirely, the Coachmakers Arms, the name under which the local directories list it from 1847 to 1855 (other records put the change as early as 1844 or 1845): the Carlisle Journal's sale advertisement of 29 August 1856 describes it plainly as the 'Coachmakers Arms formerly Durham Ox'. It had reverted to the Durham Ox by 1861, when Robert Irving, 40, is recorded as victualler in that year's census; the Cumberland News's 1933 list of the two streets' licensed houses has John Murray there in the 1860s. Joseph Pollard, landlord for three weeks, was fined in June 1866 for keeping a disorderly house and harbouring prostitutes.

Mr Conolly of the Durham Ox sat on Rickergate's committee of the publicans' subscription for the poor in December 1878. Margaret Coulon is the innkeeper of both the 1891 and 1901 censuses. At the brewster sessions of September 1898 its renewal was adjourned with four others for the Chief Constable to see that defects in construction and sanitary arrangements had been made good. It was a Carlisle Old Brewery house, and drops out of the directories after 1907-08.

In March 1909 the city justices heard its case with the Ship Inn, Rickergate and the Railway Hotel on Botchergate, and referred all three for compensation. Its end came at the Cumberland Compensation Authority that June. Mrs Clara Tyrell was the tenant and the Carlisle Old Brewery the owner. The city's detective inspector called it a poor building, insanitary and not fit to live in, 'the worst licensed house structurally in Carlisle', and said the trade had almost entirely gone from Rickergate; the chief sanitary inspector agreed.

The brewery's counsel, R. I. Steele, put in plans for a £700 rebuilding with new stabling and four loose boxes, often wanted for Irish cattle and entire horses, and Robert Dalton said the brewery had acquired the house two years before for £1,000 through a mortgage, with the cottages behind, now in ruins. The authority refused to renew the licence and sent it for compensation.

The Carlisle Journal of 17 December 1909 records the 'late Durham Ox' up for sale. The building was demolished in 1961.

Sources 15

Location from geograph.org.uk. The pin is approximate.

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