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Lost pub · St Cuthbert's Lane

The Robert Burns Inn

1823 to about 1837

Built
A beerhouse, the Prince of Wales Feathers, from about 1823
Gone
Became the Shakespeare by 1837
There now
Not established
Address
5 St Cuthbert's Lane
Where exactly
Placed by house number on the south side of St Cuthbert's Lane, counting from the English Street end, from the order in Kelly's directory of 1897. The exact building isn't known, so the position is approximate.

At 5 St Cuthbert's Lane, a beerhouse called the Prince of Wales Feathers from about 1823. It became the Robert Burns by 1825, and the directories have it as Burns' Tavern by 1828-29, when Pigot's and Parson and White's both name Joseph Rankin as its keeper. In 1829 Parson and White record that 'Burns' anniversary is held at the Crown and Thistle and Burns' Taverns', so this was where Carlisle kept Burns Night. Burns had himself stayed at the Malt Shovel on Rickergate in 1787, so the name was not idle in this city. By 1837 the house was the Shakespeare.

A 'Plume and Feathers' in the lane, a common inn with stables and a front pew in St Cuthbert's Church, was sold by auction in October 1823, and a Mr M'Knight had a Plume of Feathers there in 1811; the Prince of Wales's feathers are a plume of feathers, so this may be the same house under its earlier name, though the sale gives no number. Not the Plume of Feathers in Scotch Street.

The Shakespeare name stayed in the lane into the twentieth century. Kelly's directories of 1897 and 1906 list the Shakespeare Tavern at number 5, on the south side, under Thomas Walsh and then Daniel Mahoney, with the Lowther Arms across the lane at number 12, and the two are easily confused. The lane's numbers changed along the way: the Shakespeare was 27 in 1847, 7 in 1873 and 5 from 1894. One record has number 5 becoming the Lowther Arms in 1858, but every directory from 1858 lists the two houses separately.

It was a Carlisle Old Brewery house when the scheme acquired it in August 1916, or July by Historic England's gazetteer, and the scheme's 1920 roll carries it at number 50 as the Shakespeare Tavern, St Cuthbert's Lane. Its last tenant, Allison, fought the Board: a 1919 memo on unsettled compensation records that he wrote an abusive letter to the Board's chairman, Lord D'Abernon, in July 1916, and refused £30, though the trade was so small that he was evidently making practically no profit at all.

It closed in 1917 by one record and in 1922 by the gazetteer, and the building was demolished by 1940. The Cumberland News of 15 March 1991 pictured the Shakespeare, one of five pubs it said once stood in the lane, on the south side, and gave the Lanes Library listings as having it in the local directories from 1844 to 1914.

J. Edgar of the Shakespeare Tavern sat on the English Street committee of the publicans' subscription for the poor in December 1878. In September 1897 the licence of the Shakespeare Tavern passed from Thomas Walsh to Alexander Williamson, and in the same list the Lowther Arms went from Tom Tweddle to John Nichol Hewitt. Whether the Shakespeare of those years was still the old Burns' Tavern building is less certain. Mannix and Whellan's directory of 1847 lists the Shakespeare Tavern under George Foster, alongside a separate City Arms in the lane, and in June 1855 the Carlisle Journal advertised 'G. Forster's, Shakspeare Tavern, late City Arms, St. Cuthbert's Lane'. The name seems to have moved into the City Arms building in the 1850s.

Sources 18

Open question

A date we can't pin down

Which building was the Shakespeare at number 5 in the later directories: the old Burns' Tavern, or the City Arms, which the Shakespeare name seems to have moved into in 1855?

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 Robert Burns Inn

Also lost on St Cuthbert's Lane

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