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Publicans of the Lord Exmouth Hotel, Graham and Barbara Cox.
Lord Exmouth Hotel The year was 1977 when a young family, Graham and Barbara Cox, with their children Sean and Donna, took over as publicans of the Lord Exmouth Hotel , located at Exeter/Semaphore.
Semaphore. Little did he know that 20 years later he would be the publican.
The Lord Exmouth Hotel, known as ‘The Monkey House’, had hundreds of stuffed monkeys dangling from the ceiling and bars. People from all over the world come to look at the monkeys, taking photos and embracing an old pub with good old fashioned charm.
In the early days, when the bar would open at 6am, it would be full by 7am with wharfies who would stop in for a rum or a couple of pints on their way to work.
The Lord Exmouth Hotel is a small corner pub, located one street back from Semaphore Road and Glanville Train Station.
The family lived upstairs and Donna recalls getting ready for school, the juke box on full volume at 6am. “Dad (Graham) would be working, we would go behind
Graham said he had seen enormous change in the past 45 years.
Graham said, “He would do a day’s trade before midday.”
Graham and Barb have since become ‘living history’ when it came to being publicans. Certainly up there with the longest serving publicans at the one establishment. Graham acknowledges it’s a great achievement. 45 years in the business cannot be achieved without a brilliant wingman, and Graham’s wingman is his wonderful wife, Barbara Ann. Barbara does a lot of behind the scenes work and the customers adore her. Graham discovered the pub in the 1950s as a young boy selling newspapers to all the local pubs at 10 | Hotel SA | W W W . A H A S A . A S N . A U
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