India Arms

It stood on a corner of one of the busiest streets in old Devonport, for at the bottom of this thoroughfare was the point of departure and arrival for ships and boats travelling up and down the Tamar and up and down the English coastline. Consequently there were a lot of pubs along its length, some shorter lived than others and all of them closed or long since gone. The street was almost entirely rebuilt just before the war and then more recently it has all but been demolished once more. The precise location of the India Arms was around one hundred yards up from Cornwall Beach, on the corner of Chapman’s Ope and like its near neighbour and lone survivor, the erstwhile Swan Hotel (now converted as flats) it was one of the older Devonport hostelries. Records date back at least to the early part of the nineteenth century, but it could easily have been quite a bit older than that. Closed, apparently, before 1918, it was latterly known as the India Spirit Vaults.

Licensees

1812 - J Veale
1822 - George Beard
1830 - Gregory Northy
1844 - John Dinnis
1850 - George Mitchell
1857 - George Pomeroy
1862 - R Webber
1864 - George Wiltshire
1873 - John Bennett
1875 - E Harris
1880 - M Darbin
1882 - FW Heddon
1885 - W Goody
1888 - John Bolt
1903 - A Petherick
1905 - H Trevail
1910 - E Sowden
1912 - H Staton
1913 - N Penter
1914 - H Staton