Cooper’s Arms

Time was when there were three pubs in Wolsdon Street, the Wolsdon Arms at one end and the Duke of Somerset and the Cooper’s Arms on opposite sides of the junction with Anstis Street.

Today only the Duke survives, the Wolsdon having closed a decade or so ago and the Cooper’s two days before Christmas 1930, compensation having been paid a week earlier. Although, therefore, Plymouth no longers has a Coopers Arms the name was by no means unique to the area and there is still the Cooperage in Vauxhall Street. The name, of course, harks back to the days when beer was supplied in barrels, casks, and tubs made, and repaired, by a ‘cooper’ from wooden staves and (metal) hoops, a craft that has been all but eliminated by the modern metal keg.

Licensees

1898 - R Brimblecombe
1911 - John Smerdon
1929 - Frederick Plimmer