Commercial Hotel Tap

In the days before beer was piped from a remote barrel to a bar in another part of the building the tap room was where casks were ‘tapped’ by knocking in a spilepeg, so that the contents could be made available for drinking: often referred to as the ‘vaults’ the room became the common drinking room of a pub and was the genesis of the ‘public bar’.

Some bigger establishments kept their Taps distinct from their main facilities and this was particularly the case where there was an entirely separate entrance in an entirely different street, especially where the rear of the premises actually fronted onto another thoroughfare, as in the case of the Commercial Hotel in Old Town Street and the Commercial Hotel Tap in Market Lane, overlooking the old Plymouth Market.

Before the end of the nineteenth century the Tap and the Hotel had given way to new developments in Old Town Street and Spooner’s empire soon enveloped the whole site.

Licensees

1852 - Francis Chubb
1865 - Mrs FH Chubb
1877 - A Chubb