The Crescent Bar

History

Opened 20 August 2015

Opened

20 August 2015

Building

1 The Crescent, Grade II listed

Built by

William Gate, who developed the street in 1820 and lived here

The bar is new; its building is not. In 1820 a builder called William Gate bought the land beyond the gardens and drove a new street, the Crescent, through to link the newly made Lowther Street with Botchergate, and this is his own house. Wood's map of 1821 marks Mr W. Gate's property on the Crescent, Parson and White's directory of 1829 has him as a builder of the Crescent, and Pigot's of 1834 puts him precisely: William Gate, builder, 1 The Crescent. He built the Carlisle Subscription Library as well. The Crescent Bar occupies the first house of the terrace, the one the developer kept for himself, two hundred years after he put it up.

Keep it separate from the Andalusian in your head. The Andalusian is Harry Redfern's Hispano-Moresque pub of 1932 on Warwick Road, which opened as the Crescent Inn and was named after this street; it stands about thirty metres away and is the State Management Scheme's building on this corner. This is a small independent bar at number 1. They share a name and a corner and nothing else, and none of the Crescent Inn's history belongs here.

Number 1 is the end of a terrace, 1 to 9 The Crescent, listed Grade II on 22 February 1973. It faces the Citadel towers, put up under Henry VIII in 1541 on the site of the medieval Botcher's gate, the city's southern gate, and the bar makes something of the outlook. That same vanished gate is what Englishgate Plaza two minutes away is named after: three separate entries on this site, on one corner, taking their name or their view from a gate demolished five hundred years ago.

The bar opened on 20 August 2015, having been licensed that April, and styles itself as a speakeasy: its own description says it speaks easy, un-prohibited, aiming at a retrospectively new atmosphere. It began serving drinks only and added food later, which the early reviews mark the change of. CAMRA describe it as a small city centre speakeasy serving lagers and ales with a few specialists, Carlisle Brewery's Spun Gold and their oatmeal stout among them, which ties it to the city's modern brewing as well as its oldest terrace, though its current CAMRA listing shows no cask ale on.

Beautiful interior, staff who'll make you a cocktail that isn't on the menu, a gin range they'll talk you through, and live music on Fridays. Small, and a cracker.