Barnstaple Inn

It stood in what became known as Princes Street but which was for most of the nineteenth century known as Princess Street - an altogether more logical name given the proximity of King Street and Queen Street. Today most of this thoroughfare is known as Granby Way although just behind the Forum a small part survives as Princes Street. Most of it has gone however, including the Barnstaple Inn as shown here.

Located on the northern side of the street, east of the junction with Marlborough Street, one of the earliest recorded licensees here was Richard Mackay who appears to have been here for the best part of twenty years at least, between 1812 and 1830. John Warren was then listed as licensee for the next twenty years, before we find Richard Mackay back behind the bar - the same one or a son perhaps?

Towards the end of the nineteenth century Baker is another name that crops up twice after an interval, while the longest serving licensee here this century, before the pub’s demolition in the late 1950s, was Ethel Philips, who came here as Ethel Williams in 1929.