Thin White Duke

History

In 1966 the Friars Tavern on Devonshire Street was, by Historic England's survey, the only house in the whole State Management Scheme still entirely men only. It now takes its name from David Bowie's mid-seventies persona, the Thin White Duke, which is progress of a kind.

The building is of the 1830s and Grade II listed. The venue describes it as monastery-owned, which fits the geography: Devonshire Street sits in the old Abbey and Cathedral quarter, on land historically tied to the priory, which would put it with the Sportsman on the Blackfriars and the Wetheral pubs under the Dean and Chapter. That is the venue's own claim rather than something independently verified.

The scheme took the Friars Tavern in September 1916, and it was the last of its houses to move with the times. The scheme's jubilee supplement of October 1966 says it was about to be 'completely altered', and would then lose its 'exclusive masculine status'. It was a scheme pub to the end, which some lists miss: the 1973 sell-off records have it sold to Whitbread for £20,100, one of the individual lots rather than bundled into one of the four groups. For comparison, Whitbread paid £175,100 the same year for the Red Lion and Caledonian on Botchergate together, and the Central Hotel went to Greenall Whitley for £220,000.

As the Friars Tavern it was once the only bar on Devonshire Street; by 2014 the street had as many real ale bars as the whole city had in 1976. It became FT's, then the Glasshouse, and in 2010 the Thin White Duke. That Glasshouse is not the Glasshouse in Englishgate Plaza, which is a different room and a later name.

Long and thin inside, which is funnier than it should be given the name. Wooden floors throughout, a basement drinking area of couches and easy chairs, dining at the front. Cocktails, a big gin range, and beers from West Walls, tying it into the city's current brewing revival.

Widely repeated locally, but we haven't found a source for it yet. Know one?