Black Cow

Given that it was listed as No.1 Harbour Avenue it must have either been on the corner or the first door down from the corner of Harbour Avenue and Exeter Street – as seen here some fifty odd years later, but still before the site was redeveloped before the Second World War.

Latter well known as the home of James Hawker’s wine and spirit merchants, it was perhaps no great co-incidence that this was known as the Black Cow, as there was a Red Cow throughout the nineteenth century just around the corner in Exeter Street.

The Red Cow was one of several in the Three Towns, there was another in Devonport and a third in Albert (Bayswater) Road, while the Black Cow was one of a number of Black creatures commemorated locally in pub names – there was also the Black Lion, Black Eagle and two Black Horses. The Black Cow would appear to be the shortest lived of them all as we have only one reference and one licensee – Whiddon – in 1877.