HISTORIC PRESTON PUBS
PART 10 NORTH ROAD
I
n the latest instalment of our look back on the closed pubs of Preston, we focus on the area in the vicinity of North Road. Starting at the Adelphi Roundabout we head out of town along Moor Lane, and after a short distance, on the right hand side of the road, we come to our first pub. A relative newcomer, the CROSS KEYS at 148 Moor Lane only opened in
1967, and had been built to replace another Matthew Brown pub with the same name on nearby Adelphi Street. The pub was close to the site of Preston’s last windmill. The design was typical 1960s, with an open plan lounge style and little in the way of distinctiveness. The 1992 Preston Guild Real Ale Guide shows the pub as serving Theakston Best Bitter. The pub was known by a number of different names over the next 13 years: RAVEN, RAT & RAVEN, RAT & PARROT and at the time of closure in 2005, EINSTEIN’S THEORY, by which time real ale had long since been discontinued. The building was demolished in 2007 and student flats built on the site. [Author’s note: this pub should have featured in Part 3: The University Quarter, but was somehow overlooked.]
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Ale Cry
ISSUE 128 SPRING 2022
Further up on the other side of the road on the corner with Victoria Street was the PRINCE ARTHUR. The original pub was built in 1851 and was a more traditional looking three storey building. At some point the original pub has been demolished and a rather squat and ungainly looking flat roofed replacement built. In the late 1980s this was a Bass house with one large room around a central bar and was recorded as serving Stones Best Bitter. At one time this was the brewery tap for the long defunct Victoria Brewery, which was in the adjacent building on Victoria Street. The building to the right in the picture of the pub shows the end of what was once the premises of Thomas Powell & Son, biscuit manufacturers. It is a similar story here to the Cross Keys, change the name, in this case to UNIVERSITY TAVERN (no doubt to try to cash in on the nearby university), take out the real ale and give it a garish paint job. Another name change followed, this time to JJ’S LOUNGE BAR, leading to the inevitable closure in 2011. The building is still in existence and is occupied as a food take-away.
At the top end of Moor Lane, on the corner of Vernon Street, we come to our next pub, the MITRE TAVERN. This was a modern, two-roomed pub, with a comfortable lounge and a more basic tap/games room. This was once a Vaux pub, and significantly the only one in the city serving real ale, although by the time of it’s closure in 2005 it was serving Tetley Bitter. The building still stands and is occupied as a vet’s surgery. At the traffic lights, where Moor Lane meets North Road stood our next casualty, the UNICORN. A fine stone-built pub, which became a Theakston’s house when Matthew Brown were promoting that brand. Described in the 1992 guide as a comfortable spacious pub specialising in live music and quiz nights and with a decent range of real ale, a function room and a beer garden, this would seem to be exactly the sort of pub that would survive. However, the ever-growing university acquired the pub and closed it in 2017. It is currently being used as offices but will be turned into student accommodation once other building work in the area is completed. Our next closure is another recent one. The NEW WELCOME on Cambridge Walk was a Thwaites’ pub that again survived until 2017. It was described in the 1992 Guild Guide as “a small cosy locals’ pub, which has survived the surrounding demolition and which now serves new housing developments. The well preserved windows include the information that ‘Home Brewed Ales’ are on offer here”. Thwaites Mild & Bitter were available on handpump and real ale was available here until only a few years ago. It is interesting to compare the fate of this pub, owned and run by a local brewery with a seeming
