Gas House Inn

When Keat Street was first laid out in the middle of the nineteenth century there was little development to the north of it, Keyham Lake Lane meandered alongside Keyham Lake which was tidal beyond the bottom of Ford Hill up to the lower reaches of Swilly, to the east was the new railway line and to the west was the brand new Keyham Steam Yard. It was this latter development that prompted the new housing in the area, but it was another new development close by that occasioned the naming of the beerhouse at No.1 Keat Street.

The Act of Parliament giving the green light to the new gas works at Devonport had been passed in 1845 (a year after Plymouth), and in 1853 a further Act enabled the Devonport concern to grow yet further. While the ‘Gas House’ association may not seem too commercial nowadays, the impact that gas had back then, in those pre-electric days, was of course, enormous.

A wartime victim, the Gas House had been a popular pub with euchre-playing dockyardies when the Champion sisters ran it.

Licensees

1852 - John Cayzer
1862 - Richard Hooper
1867 - Alice Taylor
1873 - John Ridgate
1899 - A Champion
1920 - Louisa Champion
1923 - Beatrice Champion
1932 - Louisa Prideaux
1934 - Bernard Turner
1938 - Margaret Turner