Guildhall Tavern (No.33)

Off the two Guildhall Taverns that we know of in Whimple Street the one located at No.33, opposite the imposing frontage of the Georgian Guildhall, appears to have been the oldest, or at least the one that had been known by that name, the longest. It is not clear if either of them were operating during the period of almost two hundred years that the Jacobean Guildhall occupied the same site, but we do know that around the time the new (current) Guildhall was built, 1870-73, this ceased to be the Guildhall Tavern and the erstwhile Distillery, on the other side of the road, assumed the name, Guildhall Tavern.

For many years next door to No.33, on the western side, was Harris and Bulteel’s famous Naval Bank. Shortly after the tavern closed, we find an impressively-named printer, Isiah Waterloo Nicholson Keys, trading from these premises. It is tempting to think that a local dentist practising in Plymouth at that time, one Elias Linneaus Keys, may have been a brother, or father.

Licensees

1847 - S Veale
1850 - William Faye
1857 - John Cambridge