Hansom Cab

There is a reference, in 1850, to an earlier Hansom Cab in neighbouring Adelaide Street, the earliest reference we have for this Granby Street pub however is in the 1870s when JN Leaman appears to have converted his cab business into a beer retailer. Clearly that would make the choice of name a fairly obvious one: it was also a fairly popular one too in the mid-nineteenth century, as the cab transformed everyday street travel and there are still a number of Hansom Cab pubs in London.

Plymouth however has a particular link with this mode of transport in that the man who, in 1834, patented and designed the lighter, faster, one-horse cab was Joseph Aloysius Hanson: the very man who, some twenty years later, designed the gothic style Roman Catholic Cathedral just a few hundred yards from here in Cecil Street.

Licensees

1873 - JN Leaman
1877 - S Rundle
1885 - Robert Lean
1895 - John McCarthy
1907 - J Parkhouse
1914 - A Toms