Bricklayer’s Arms

It surely can’t be a coincidence that the only pub in Plymouth to have been called the Bricklayer’s Arms, stood in the same street that saw, according to the Municipal Records, ‘The first House built in the Town of Bricks and with sashed windows’.

That was back in 1706-07, two hundred years ago – prior to that all local buildings were either stone built or wooden framed (England’s first brick-built buildings incidentally date back to the mid-1400s).

The street in question was Briton Side (later part of Exeter Street) and the Bricklayer’s Arms was on the south-eastern corner of the Exeter Street junction with Moon Street. The site was redeveloped just before the Second World War, but the Bricklayer’s had long since closed and after some years as a butcher’s then a fruiterer’s it became part of Hawker’s Wine Stores.

Licensees

1865 - James Thomas