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Lost pub · Rickergate

The George and Dragon Inn

1780 to 1903

Opened
1780
Gone
Licence ended April 1903
There now
Unknown
Address
41 Rickergate
Where exactly
Placed by house number on the east side of Rickergate, at the corner of Drover's Lane, the last house at the Scotch Street end, 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.

At 41 Rickergate, on the corner of Drovers' Lane: Bulmer's directory of 1884 gives its address as 1 Drover's Lane and 41 Rickergate, the corner house. It was trading from 1780, and is traceable through more than a century of named licensees, starting with Mary Carrick in 1801 and Lawrence Benson by 1804. Its history wasn't entirely smooth. An 1839 notice announced its conversion to shops, only for a second notice a month later to advertise it to let as a pub again, so the closure didn't stick.

In March 1856 Elizabeth Bell announced that she had removed from the George and Dragon to the Pine Apple on English Street. Andrew Mallinson had it by 1861, and the Cumberland News's 1933 list of the two streets' licensed houses has Thomas Martin keeping it in the 1860s. The licence passed from W. Bell to H. Johnstone in May 1868, and temporarily from I. J. South to James Beck in October 1881. John McNeil kept it in 1884; he was on the magistrates' black list in October 1885 and was renewed with a caution, and in September 1889 Hannah Collins was on it for keeping open in prohibited hours. Thomas Taylor had it by 1891.

In 1894 the police formally objected to the renewal of its licence at the Brewster Sessions. The Cumberland News of 22 February 1991 says the case occupied the licensing justices the year before the Otter's appeal. The Carlisle Patriot reported an objection on the grounds that it was the resort of thieves and other persons of bad character, was no longer required and had an unfit licence holder; the premises were then leased to the Maryport Brewery Company. To show it was not needed it was stated that 53 other licensed premises lay within 500 yards.

It was also said that the occupier was a bookmaker and that the house was a resort of other bookmakers of the lowest order, as well as of known thieves and prostitutes, well known to the police, and that there was a great deal of card playing for hours on end.

The evidence for keeping the licence included stabling for 20 horses, in two four-stall blocks and one three-stall block, with other outbuildings, where at cavalry time, presumably an annual camp, both horses and men were billeted. The justices decided to grant the licence. Four years later the Chief Constable visited on 25 August 1898 and found the George and Dragon and the Light Horseman 'filthy', the sanitary arrangements very defective and each with 'a most objectionable back door'. Its renewal was adjourned with four others that September, for him to see the defects in construction and sanitary arrangements made good; the owners undertook to put it right, and it was renewed on 26 September.

John Thompson had it by 1901, and it is last recorded in the trade directories around 1902-03. The 1991 column dates it in the city directories from 1829 and says it ceased trading as a pub in about 1905-06, but the earlier date is the right one for the licence: the Carlisle Journal's report of the adjourned licensing sessions of March 1903 lists it among six city licences that would cease after April that year: the New Inn, Backhouse Walk; the Old Queen's Head, St Albans Row; the George and Dragon, Rickergate; the Spread Eagle, English Street; the Ordnance Arms, Finkle Street; and the Barley Stack, Rickergate.

Sources 13

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

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