Scotby, Carlisle

Royal Oak

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On the scheme's 1920 roll as the Royal Oak, Scotby, number 118.

Sold to John Smith's as part of Group 3, handed over on 10 May 1973. Who bought the rest

Village pub in the middle of Scotby with a serious kitchen and a loyal following. Roasts and pies are the draw. Closed Monday and Tuesday.

Today: See opening hours
Address: 47 Scotby Village, Scotby, Carlisle CA4 8BP
Phone: 01228 498117

Directions Ring them Their website

History

Scotby once had three pubs, and the Royal Oak is the one left. It opened around 1854 from a former beerhouse, in the middle of the village opposite the green and the hall. The Welcome Inn stood on the green itself, where the village hall now is, from 1864 until the Board closed it in 1917, and a Joiners Arms at Wheelbarrow Hall, where Scotby Road meets the A69, was built around 1833 and later demolished for road widening.

The name is one of the most common in Britain and has a specific origin: the oak at Boscobel House where the future Charles II hid from Parliamentarian troops after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. After the Restoration the episode was celebrated every 29 May as Oak Apple Day, and Royal Oaks appeared everywhere; there is another on this site at Moorhouse. It joins a fair royal run here too: the Kings Head, both Crowns, the William Rufus and the Royal Scot.

Scotby sits outside the city boundary but inside the 500 square miles the State Management Scheme covered, and the scheme's own roll of 1920 lists the Royal Oak, Scotby, at number 118; it also appears in the photographic record of the state managed pubs of Carlisle and district. Historic England's gazetteer supplies the rest: the scheme took only the lease, in August 1916, and altered the pub in 1931-2; its report for the year to March 1931 says 'improved accommodation is being provided' there.

Its sign was shown at the Inn Signs Exhibition at the Building Centre in London in 1936, where most of the signs on show were the work of Ernest Dinkel, the artist Redfern almost always used for the painted decoration of the scheme's later pubs. The scheme put in new lavatories in 1963 and offered the pub for sale in 1972.

It stood empty in 2018, and was completely refurbished and reopened in September 2019, independent and family-run. It is dining-led, and the beef Sunday roast gets the reviews, with a part-covered outside area and afternoon teas. One for the ale drinkers: CAMRA volunteers have flagged it for serving Fresh Ale, which is keg beer dispensed through a cask handpump, so it is worth asking whether it's genuine cask before you buy.