Devonport Spirit Vaults

Most sizeable towns and cities seem to have a pub that name checks the town or city it sits in and yet for many years Devonport didn’t: quite possibly this was something to do with Devonport being known as Dock or more properly Plymouth Dock, prior to the royal granting of the name change in 1823. Whatever the reason the first to incorporate the new name was the Devonport Railway Hotel, in Fore Street. This had been known as the Ordnance prior to the arrival of the railway, and after the war the Ark Royal was built on its site. The Devonport Spirit Vaults, on the other hand, was on the other side of the road, on the corner of Fore Street and King Street. Curiously enough both ‘Devonport’ pubs were owned and run by Thomas Payne (of Woodland Villa, Alma Road) in the 1920s, the former being sold to Bass and the latter to Starkey, Knight and Ford shortly before the war and before both were destroyed in the Blitz.

Licensees

1867 - Thomas Mogg
1893 - Thomas Payne
1909 - W Rice
1914 - Thomas Payne
1932 - Archie Northcott
1932 - Edward Dodd
1934 - James Fettis
1935 - Norman Jenkins