Devonport Railway Hotel

It’s hard to imagine now, but, a hundred years ago, if you were walking from the old King’s Road Railway Station at Devonport (where the College of Further Education stands today) towards the old town of Devonport you would have had a similar vista to your immediate left and right (the Brickfields and Devonport Park respectively) to that found today. Upon reaching Fore Street you would find a radically different view, although on the corner there’s still what was the London and South Western Railway Hotel (after the company servicing King’s Road Station) at No.1 Fore Street and just a few doors beyond it, the site of the Devonport Railway Hotel (or the Ordance Arms as it was known prior to the arrival of the railway). The latter (seen here just before the First World War) was bombed during the Second World War and, a decade or so later, it was replaced by the Ark Royal (later rechristened the Zoo Rooms and currently closed).

Licensees

1880 - H Boyling
1888 - Mr McCarthy
1893 - Thomas Curtis
1898 - Benjamin Rice
1905 - G Deacon
1912 - Thomas Payne
1919 - Sarah Payne
1920 - Olive Payne
1929 - Thomas Payne
1932 - Archie Northcott
1940 - Percy Sleeman