The Llandoger Trow’s
Architecture
The land that the Llandoger Trow stands on was first acquired by the Burgess family in 1189, gifted from John, Count of Mortain, along with all other lands and void places within the boundary of Bristol.
The timber framed buildings were built on the marshes that occupied Kings Street and the surrounding areas in 1663. This would have been against the South side of the city wall, King Street was formed as merchants moved out of the old crowded tibered city into the more spacious houses near the waterfront. The famed Millard’s map details how at this point there was open space for recreation and sheeps pastures before Queen Square was built in its palce.
Ye Olde Llandoger Trow,
There was a group of five framed houses of four storeys and a basement which were built in 1664 to meet the requirements of prosperous merchants
John Wright & Sons Ltd. Bristol.
History of the Llandoger Trow, extracted from the Rentals of the City Archives in Bristol.
1663 March 4th - Michael Deyos, merchant, was granted lease of a piece of the land in King Street, in consideration of the sum of ÂŁ4.2.0. He was to build three messuages within three years. 1694 November 6th - Lease to William Brown, merchant, of all that corner tenement, lately erected by Michael Dayos and in the posession of Aeron Williams, the younger, a cooper. 1719 June 3rd - Lease to William Brown, senior, of a messuage row in the posession of Margaret Braine, gunsmith. 1740 March - Lease to William Brown and Mathew Sewell of a tenement now in the posession of Margaret Braine, gunsmith. 1777 - Lease to Abraham Wigginton of a messuage of tenement called The Llandoger Trow in the posession of John Jones, Victualler. Sketchley names the occupants of the whole rank for this year as No. 1, Gabbitas and Co., gunmakers; No. 2, Luke Fieldhouse, joiner and victualler (The Goat); No. 3, James Ranton, Captain of the Champion; No. 4, Franks and Clark, wholesale grocers; No. 5, John Jones, victualler, Llandoger Trow. 1809 - James Baker, Victualler. 1870 - Mary Hemlyn, Victualler. 1886 - Louisa Emma Couzens. 1901 - Louisa Emma Dickman. 1912 - Roderick Macleod. 1962 - Berni Inn.
Many of the original buildings in this street were erected between 1650-1665 and were of timber construction. Gables 1 and 2 were bombed in the WW2 blitz and because of this timber framing burned furiously fast and were totally destroyed.
Gabel number 5 has been the Llandoger Trow for at least two centuries and when Berni’s took over the inn in 1962 they bought the remaining two houses (gables 3 and 4) to make the Llandoger Trow the size it is today.
http://www.realorotherside.co.uk/2011/05/llandogertrow-bristol-investigation-confirmed.html
The half-timbered work is interesting and characteristic of the buildings of the Tudor and Stuart period with overhanging eaves, splendid studded twelvepanelled doors and projecting gables. No. 5 still retains its ironwork for supporting a lamp which was necessary in the days before street lighting.
The frontage of each house has been slightly altered over the years; No. 4 had a shop front and so the ground floor windows are not uniform. Some of the casements were also remodelled in the eighteenth century with inset sashes but the whole impression of this range of houses is of a seventeenth century half-timbered facade.
http://www.francisfrith.com/bristol/ photos/ye-llandoger-trow-c1950_b212275/
Early 1950’s 2014
During a refurbishment in 1962 7 original fireplaces were uncovered, including the one in the main bar area of the far left hand side gabel.
The designer, Alex Waugh, before making any aesthetic changes to the inn had to give it a complete interior framework of steel and sink piles into the ground to a depth of 43 feet. He was quoted to have said: ‘If we hadn’t, in effect, taken it apart and shored it up at the seams, it would have disappeared from sheer neglect before long.’
‘It’s a miracle the floors didn’t cave in years ago.’
The old floorboards, back in the time of Selkirk at the Llandoger, used to be covered in saw dust and shavings to soak up spilt alcohol and other liquids, however when the Trow became a Berni Inn in 1962 they changed the floorboards on the ground floor to reclaimed stone paving slabs from the old bus station in town.
The floorboards upstairs however did not cave in, but retain a dip of eight inches between the centre and the ends of the upstairs rooms. This only adds to the excitement and tangibility of the history around the Llandoger. Even the bookcase upstairs in the 5th gable is origional, along with the books it contains.
The 4th gabel must have been enhanced by it’s owner in the 18th century because it shows off some beautiful Georgian pine panelling, Delft tiles and plasterwork.
This section was origionally two rooms, one used as a study, the other a sitting room. Above you when you enter this room is one of the most ornate and elaborate domestic ceilings in Bristol. Crafted over two hundred years ago when the house was modernised, and they are very similar to the ones at the Hatchet Inn, the Llandoger’s origional rival.
‘The roistering recklessness of ‘old Bristol’ may be celebrated by occasionally sentimental citizens waylaid in The Rummer or The Hatchet or The Llandoger Trow (all famous pubs).’ The New Statesman and Nation, September 12th 1953. Basil Davidson.
The origional 17th century staircase is interesting because, although cramped into such a small area they have managed to ease the ascent by adding three flights per floor. The balusters, newels and handrails are all as original and in perfect condition.
The two most popular bars in the Llandoger Trow are the Jacobean Wine Bar and the Smugglers Bar. The Jacobean Wine Bar is the older of the two belonging to the Trow as it is housed in the 5th gable, the origional Llandoger Trow. However the Smugglers Bar is more popular as it is lighter inside and more accomodating on a busy day.
built outside the city walls to aviod laws concerning ‘rogues and vagabonds’.
On the first floor you can also find the Old Vic bar, a commemoration of the Trow’s long association with the Theatre Royal opposite.
The Old Vic was built in 1766 and is, to this day, the oldest working playhouse in the counrty. It was buit with the needs of the new, sophisticated merchant class of Bristol in mind.
Playbills dating from 1806 decorate the walls of the bars in the Trow and pictures are also displayed of actors such as Henry Irving, the first British actor to be awarded a knighthood, the Terry fmail and Sir Max Berbohm Tree.
Tunnels &
cellars
Although the pub now has 2 cellars there may have been more than this with a network of underground tunnels around Bristol, the remains of another was found in 1962 when the pub was refurbished but sadly destroyed as steel piling had to be sunk 43ft down into the marsh to hold it up.
The cellars have been known to flood int he past due to their proximity to the water, however the damage has never been serious. The most recent flooding on December 1981 brought just over seven foot of water into the pub’s main cellar and almost two foot into the lounge on the ground floor, but as everything in the cellar was in casks or bottles it was alright.
The tunnels could have been connected, through their own cellars beneath ground, to a range of other known tunnels throughout Bristol, some of which still exist.
One of the tunnels most probably linked with the Llandoger Trow is the tunnel that runs through Castle Moat, connecting to the outside by where the ferry docking is today.
Many of the city’s tunnels interlinked, making it possible to walk from Corn Street totally underground, through the city centre, to today’s Castle Park ferry dock. There is a good chance that the tunnels from the Llandoger connected up with these. The history under the ground, in these tunnels, follown from the time when the city was run by smugglers and slave traders to when the BBC operated in bunkers within the tunnels during the war as safe shelter.
Castle Moat
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/uk-draining-forum/48231-undergroundboating-castle-moat-bristol-03-10-updated-extended-trip-may-2012-a.html
links the water bound tunnels as of 1847, when it was covered. Before that point it was a functioning open air moat for Castle Park. approximately 45 minutes of paddling from the ferry docking station lead you to the River Frome, where the tunnels stop and the water takes you above ground again.
Another group of tunnels connect at Lawrence Hill, where an underground Victorian street stretching from Ducie Road to the Packhorse Pub creates an underground walkway.
200 years ago a well-known Herapath fmaily owned the Packhorse’s brewery. In 1832 a horse-drawn railway went through Lawrence Hill, just along side the pub, with a wooden bridge on top. By 1879 the bridge needed replacing, so the authorities decided to lift the road up above the height of the bridge.
In the process of making these alterations the Packhorse Inn and the neighbouring houses and shops’ bottom floors were engulfed under the ground and a new road was supported by a series of arched tunnels and cellars at the height of the previous second floor.
www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Rail-firm-build-new-bridge-raise-height-highway/story-14188833detail/story.html
However, as the tunnels and cellars are now lost under ground we will never know if the pirates used tunnels from the Llandoger Trow to get around the city and avoid being arrested. There is no concrete proof, but this is what history suggests, and what happened throughout the rest of the city.
350 years of the Llandoger Trow
1664-
2014