Lost pub · Devonshire Street
The Friars Tavern
- Built
- In local directories from 1873
- Gone
- Renamed FT's, 1999
- There now
- Thin White Duke, the third name since, still trading
- Where exactly
- Placed on Devonshire Street from the position of pubs still standing there. Somewhere on this street, not this doorway
The one with the tunnel, and a name that outlived itself twice over. A passage is said to run from here to the Cathedral, and the same story attaches to the Boardroom a few streets away, which is usually a sign that a city has one tunnel legend and several pubs willing to claim it -- Devonshire Street sits about right for it, all the same. As a pub it goes back further than the State Management roll that used to be the only trace of it here: in local directories from 1873 (against a widely-repeated 1879, which two independent sources now disagree with), with Letitia Allmand, 30 and born at Oswestry, recorded as hotel manageress in the 1901 census.
A carved mural survives at the entrance. It had its share of ghost stories: the Carlisle Journal called it "haunted" in 1964, the Evening News and Star ran a "spine-chilling" feature on it in 1970, it reopened after a facelift in 1974, a retiring landlord wrote a "why I called time" piece for the paper in 1977, and the Cumberland News found "a new feel for an old friend" in 1990. By 1973 the neighbouring Friars Court had become a wine store.
The State Management Scheme took the pub on in August 1916 and sold it to Whitbread in April 1973 for £20,100, one of the individual lots rather than part of a group. It kept the Friars Tavern name until 1999, then went through FT's (1999-2003) and the Glasshouse (2003-2010) before becoming the Thin White Duke in 2010, which is trading there now.
Sources
- Carlisle Encyclopaedia, "F" page
- D. Perriam, Lowther Street, 2022, p7: the carved mural
- breweryhistory.com: the scheme's 1920 roll
Also lost on Devonshire Street
Still serving, near where it stood
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10 maway
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10 maway
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10 maway
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30 maway